The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has retained its position as the top ranked university in the world, according to annual league tables.
The QS World Universities 2015/16 rankings, published today, also saw Harvard rise from fourth place last year to take second spot this year, overtaking the University of Cambridge.
Imperial College London, which was placed joint second last year, slipped to eighth, while the University of Oxford and UCL also fell in the rankings.
However, despite these slips, the UK has maintained its reputation for world class higher education. London, in particular, performed strongly, as the only city in the world with four universities in the top 50, more than Boston and New York (3) Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong and Beijing (2).
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, praised institutions in the Capital, saying the city was the "education capital of the world."
"The city’s education sector is going from strength to strength," he said. "Attracting the world’s top talent and producing the next generation of great thinkers and leaders."
The QS top 100 world universities
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2. Harvard University
3= University of Cambridge
3= Stanford University
5. California Institute of Technology (CALTECH)
6. University of Oxford
7. UCL (University College London)
8. Imperial College London
9. Eth Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
10. University of Chicago
11. Princeton University
12. National University of Singapore (NUS)
13. Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
14. École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
15. Yale University
16. Johns Hopkins University
17. Cornell University
18. University of Pennsylvania
19= Australian National University (ANU)
19= Kings College London KCL)
21. University of Edinburgh
22. Columbia University
23. École normale supérieure, Paris (ENS Paris)
24. McGill University
25. Tsinghua University
26. University of California Berkeley, Berkeley (UCB)
27. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
28. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
29. Duke University
30= University of Michigan
30= University of Hong Kong (HKU)
32. Northwestern University
33. University of Manchester
34. University of Toronto
35. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
36. Seoul National University (SNU)
37. University of Bristol
38. Kyoto University
39. The University of Tokyo
40. Ecole Polytechnique Paristech
41. Peking University
42. The University of Melbourne
43. KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
44. University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
45. The University of Sydney
46= The University of New South Wales (UNSW)
46= The University of Queensland (UQ)
48. University of Warwick
49. Brown University
50. University of British Columbia
51= The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
51= Fudan University
53. New York University (NYU)
54. University of Wisconsin-Madison
55. University of Amsterdam
56. Tokyo Institute of Technology
57. City University of Hong Kong
58. Osaka University
59. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
60. Technische Universitat Munchen
61. Durham University
62= Carnegie Mellon University
62= University of Glasgow
64. Delft University of Technology
65. University of Washington
66. Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg
67. Monash University
68. University of St Andrews
69. University of Copenhagen
70= National Taiwan University (NTU)
70= Lund University
70= Shanghai Jiao Tong University
70= University of Nottingham
74. Tohoku University
75. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen
76. University of Birmingham
77. University of Texas at Austin
78. Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
79. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
80. University of Sheffield
81. University of Southampton
82= The University of Auckland
82= Katholieke Universiteit
84. Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
85= University of California, Davis (UCD)
85= University of Zurich
87= University of Leeds
87= Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)
89= Purdue University
89= University of Geneva
91. Boston University
92. KTH, Royal Institute of Technology
93. KIT, Karlsruher Institute Fur Technologie
94. Utrecht University
95. Leiden University
96= University of Helsinki
96= University of Alberta
98. The University of Western Australia (UWA)
99. Ohio State University
100. University of Groningen
