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World rankings: Top 10 universities in 2013

If you're attending one of the world’s top universities, chances are high you're an English-speaking student on a leafy campus in the United States or the United Kingdom. 

Britain’s leading higher education publication, The Times Higher Education, released its 2013-2014 version of the annual global ranking of the world’s top universities. Schools in the US and the UK take all top 10 spots and over half of the top 100. 

Switzerland earned the top-ranked school outside of the US or UK at number 14, and Japan’s University of Tokyo landed as the highest Asian school at number 23. India and Russia continue to struggle, placing no institutions in the top 100 for the second year in a row.

The editor of the rankings, Phil Baty, pointed to a pattern of “clustering” among elite universities: Boston, Mass. has more universities on the list than China, Switzerland, or Australia. And London has more than all of Japan. Mr. Baty notes fears that regional schools may be slipping while elite institutions thrive. 

The study’s methodology relies on data from Thomson Reuters’ Global Institutional Profiles database, and measures schools on their teaching, research, industry income, and international outlook.

Here are the top 10 schools: 

Ben Margot/AP/File
Members of the University of California at Berkeley marching band play the national anthem prior to the first half of an NCAA college football game between Northwestern and California on Aug. 31, 2013, in Berkeley, Calif.

No. 10: Imperial College London

Imperial College London became independent in 2007 after a century as part of the University of London. The university is known for its schools of medicine, natural science, education, and business, but it fell two spots from last year’s ranking of No. 8 to No. 10 this year. It is located in London’s museum quarter and three of its academics have recently had asteroids named after them. 

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