UK three in top 10 Global Universities

Times Higher Education’s 2011-12 World University Rankings, published today, are again dominated by the US, which places 75 universities among the Top 200. But for the first time since our rankings began in 2004, the top spot is not occupied by Harvard University. Instead, the 375-year-old behemoth has relinquished first place to a young upstart, the California Institute of Technology, whose success can be attributed to its consistent results across all indicators and its attracting 16 per cent more research funding than it did the previous year. Harvard must content itself with sharing second place with Stanford University.
It is really no surprise that the US performs so well: spending more than anyone else on its universities – 2.7 per cent of gross domestic product – it gets a system that many other nations, the UK among them, aspire to emulate…..