Times Higher Education is one of three prestigious university ranking organizations in the world, alongside Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
To be ranked, universities must have at least 200 scientific articles published in the past five years, at least 5% of the teaching staff or 50 people teaching business and economics subjects.
The ranking criteria include 18 indicators, divided into 5 groups. Among them, the research environment accounts for the largest weight (31.6%), followed by teaching quality (30.4%), research quality (25%), internationality (9%), income and industrial patents (4%). In this article, we will introduce the top 10 best business universities in the world for you.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science.
To the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT is one of three private land-grant universities in the United States, the others being Cornell University and Tuskegee University. The institute has an urban campus that extends more than a mile (1.6 km) alongside the Charles River, and encompasses a number of major off-campus facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Bates Center, and the Haystack Observatory, as well as affiliated laboratories such as the Broad and Whitehead Institutes.
MIT places among the top five in many overall rankings of universities and rankings based on students' revealed preferences. For several years, U.S. News & World Report, the QS World University Rankings, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities have ranked MIT's School of Engineering first, as did the 1995 National Research Council report. In the same lists, MIT's strongest showings apart from engineering are in computer science, the natural sciences, business, architecture, economics, linguistics, mathematics, and, to a lesser extent, political science and philosophy.
Times Higher Education has recognized MIT as one of the world's "six super brands" on its World Reputation Rankings, along with Berkeley, Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford. In 2019, it was ranked #3 among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. In 2017, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings also rated MIT the #2 university for arts and humanities. MIT was ranked #7 in 2015 and #6 in 2017 of the Nature Index Annual Tables, which measure the largest contributors to papers published in 82 leading journals. Georgetown University researchers ranked MIT #3 in the US for 20-year return on investment.
2. Stanford University (USA)
Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies 8,180 acres (3,310 hectares), among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland Stanford.
The university is organized around seven schools on the same campus: three schools consisting of 45 academic departments at the undergraduate level, as well as four professional schools that focus on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. The university also houses the Hoover Institution, a public policy think-tank. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two private institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. As of May 26, 2022, Stanford has won 131 NCAA team championships, more than any other university, and was awarded the NACDA Directors' Cup for 25 consecutive years, beginning in 1994. In addition, by 2021, Stanford students and alumni had won at least 296 Olympic medals including 150 gold and 79 silver medals.
In 2014 dubbed Stanford as "the Harvard of the 21st century". In the same year The New York Times dubbed Harvard as the "Stanford of the East". In that article titled To Young Minds of Today, Harvard Is the Stanford of the East, The New York Times concluded that "Stanford University has become America's 'it' school, by measures that Harvard once dominated." In 2019, Stanford University took 1st place on Reuters' list of the World's Most Innovative Universities for the fifth consecutive year. In 2022, Washington Monthly ranked Stanford at 1st position in their annual list of top universities in the United States. In a 2022 survey by The Princeton Review, Stanford was ranked 1st among the top ten "dream colleges" of America, and was considered to be the ultimate "dream college" of both students and parents. Stanford Graduate School of Business was ranked 1st in the list of America's best business schools by Bloomberg for 2022. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranked Stanford second in the world (after Harvard) most years from 2003 to 2020. Times Higher Education recognizes Stanford as one of the world's "six super brands" on its World Reputation Rankings, along with Berkeley, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, and Oxford.
3. Harvard University (USA)
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Harvard College primarily trained Congregational clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite. In 1900, Harvard co-founded the Association of American Universities.
The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the 209-acre (85 ha) Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard Library is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding 20 million items.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) have ranked Harvard as the world's top university every year since they were released in 2003 and 2009, respectively. When QS and Times Higher Education collaborated to publish the Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings from 2004 to 2009, Harvard held the top spot every year and continued to hold first place on THE World Reputation Rankings ever since it was released in 2011. It was ranked in the first tier of American research universities, along with Columbia, MIT, and Stanford, in the 2023 report from the Center for Measuring University Performance. Harvard University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
Among rankings of specific indicators, Harvard topped both the University Ranking by Academic Performance (2019–2020) and Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities (2011), which measured universities' numbers of alumni holding CEO positions in Fortune Global 500 companies. Harvard is consistently among the top two most commonly named dream colleges in the United States, both for students and parents. Additionally, having made significant investments in its engineering school in recent years, Harvard was ranked third worldwide for Engineering and Technology in 2019 by Times Higher Education.
4. University of California, Berkeley (USA)
The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. It was established in 1868 and is the state's first land-grant university and the founding campus of the University of California system. Berkeley is one of the best universities in the world with the most top-ranked departments nationally and more companies founded by undergraduate alumni than any other university worldwide.
Berkeley has founded and currently manages three national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Berkeley also played a role in the Manhattan Project and the discovery of sixteen chemical elements. Berkeley is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and hosts multiple research institutes dedicated to STEM fields. Berkeley's athletic teams, which compete as the California Golden Bears in the Pac-12 Conference, have won 107 national championships, and alumni have won 223 Olympic medals (including 121 gold medals).
The 2010 United States National Research Council Rankings identified Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking included English, German, Political Science, Geography, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Epidemiology, Plant Biology, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.
5. Cambridge University (UK)
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the world's third-oldest university in continuous operation. The University of Cambridge includes 31 semi-autonomous constituent colleges and over 150 academic departments, faculties, and other institutions organized into six schools. All of the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, managing their own personnel and policies, and all students are required to have a college affiliation within the university. Undergraduate teaching at Cambridge is centered on weekly small-group supervisions in the colleges with lectures, seminars, laboratory work, and occasionally further supervision provided by the central university faculties and departments. The university operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum and Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Cambridge's 116 libraries hold a total of approximately 16 million books, around nine million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library and one of the world's largest academic libraries. Cambridge alumni, academics, and affiliates have won 121 Nobel Prizes.
The University of Cambridge is routinely ranked among the world's top five universities, and has sometimes been ranked as the world's best. As of 2023, the University of Cambridge is ranked the second-best university in the world behind MIT and the best university in Europe by QS Rankings. ARWU ranks Cambridge the fourth-best university in the world as of 2023 behind Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Times Higher Education ranks Cambridge third-best in the world (tied with Stanford) in its 2023 rankings behind Oxford and Harvard. In 2022, QS Rankings ranked Cambridge's programmes among the world's best. Cambridge's Arts and Humanities program is ranked second-best in the world. The University of Cambridge's Engineering and Technology program is ranked second-best in the world. Its Life Sciences and Medicine program is ranked fourth-best in the world. Its Natural Sciences program is ranked third-best in the world. Its Social Sciences and Management program is ranked fourth-best in the world. In 2011, Times Higher Education recognised the University of Cambridge as one of the world's six super brands in its "World Reputation Rankings" along with Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and Stanford.
The University of Cambridge has been highly ranked by most international and UK league tables. It was ranked the best university in the world by QS World University Rankings in both their 2010–11 and 2011–12 rankings. In 2006, a Thomson Scientific study reported that the University of Cambridge had the highest research paper output of any British university and ranked first in research production as assessed by total paper citation count in ten of 21 major British research fields. An evidence-based study published the same year showed that the University of Cambridge won a larger proportion (6.6%) of total British research grants and contracts than any other university, ranking first in three out of four major measured discipline fields.
6. Oxford University (UK)
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. It is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. The University of Oxford is made up of thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls, and a range of academic departments which are organized into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. It does not have a main campus, and its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city center. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford consists of lectures, small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. Postgraduate teaching is provided in a predominantly centralized fashion.
Oxford is regularly ranked within the top five universities in the world and is currently ranked first in the world in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, as well as the Forbes's World University Rankings. It held the number one position in the Times Good University Guide for eleven consecutive years, and the medical school has also maintained first place in the "Clinical, Pre-Clinical & Health" table of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for the past seven consecutive years. In 2021, it ranked sixth among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. The THE has also recognised Oxford as one of the world's "six super brands" on its World Reputation Rankings, along with Berkeley, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. The university is fifth worldwide on the US News ranking. Its Saïd Business School came 13th in the world in Financial Times Global MBA Ranking. Oxford was ranked 13th in the world in 2022 by the Nature Index, which measures the largest contributors to papers published in 82 leading journals. It is ranked fifth best university worldwide and first in Britain for forming CEOs according to the Professional Ranking World Universities, and first in the UK for the quality of its graduates as chosen by the recruiters of the UK's major companies.
7. University of Chicago (USA)
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The university has its main campus in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
The university is composed of an undergraduate college and four graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university's graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. It has eight professional schools: the Law School; the Booth School of Business; the Pritzker School of Medicine; the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice; the Harris School of Public Policy; the Divinity School; the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies; and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown Chicago.
University of Chicago scholars have played a major role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics, law, literary criticism, mathematics, physics, religion, sociology, and political science, establishing the Chicago schools in various fields. Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory produced the world's first human-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath the viewing stands of the university's Stagg Field. Advances in chemistry led to the "radiocarbon revolution" in the carbon-14 dating of ancient life and objects. The university research efforts include administration of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the Marine Biological Laboratory. The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in the United States.
ARWU has consistently placed the University of Chicago among the top 10 universities in the world, and the 2021 QS World University Rankings placed the university in 9th place worldwide. THE World University Rankings has ranked it among the global top 10 for eleven consecutive years (from 2012 to 2022). The university's law and business schools rank among the top three professional schools in the United States. The business school is currently ranked first in the US by US News & World Report and first in the world by The Economist, while the law school is ranked third by US News & World Report and first by Above the Law.
8. Tsinghua University (China)
Tsinghua University is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. Tsinghua University's campus is situated in northwest Beijing, on the site of the former imperial gardens of the Qing dynasty, and is surrounded by a number of historical sites. Currently, the university has 21 schools and 59 departments, with faculties in science, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, history, philosophy, economics, management, education and art. The school is a member of the C9 League.
Tsinghua University is consistently ranked among the top universities in the Asia-Pacific according to major international university rankings. Tsinghua University ranked No. 1 in China, the whole of Asia-Oceania region and emerging countries according to the Times Higher Education, with its industry income, research, and teaching performance indicator placed at 1st, 4th and 9th respectively in the world. Internationally, Tsinghua was regarded as the most reputable Chinese university by the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings where it has ranked 9th globally and 1st in the Asia-Pacific. Tsinghua University ranked 10 among Global Innovative Universities according to the World's Universities with Real Impact (WURI) 2020 ranking released by United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Since 2013, Tsinghua also topped the newly created regional QS BRICS University Rankings. Tsinghua graduates are highly desired worldwide; in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2017, Tsinghua was ranked 3rd in the world and 1st in the whole of Afro-Eurasia & Oceania region. In 2020, Tsinghua was ranked 15th in the world by QS World University Rankings, and ranked 6th globally and 1st in Asia in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings. The Academic Ranking of World Universities, also known as the "Shanghai Ranking", placed Tsinghua University 22nd in the world and 1st in Asia & Oceania region. The U.S. News & World Report ranked Tsinghua at 1st in the Asia-Pacific and 23rd globally in its 2023 Best Global Universities Rankings. Tsinghua was the best-ranked university in the Asia-Pacific and the 17th worldwide in 2023 in terms of aggregate performance (THE+ARWU+QS) as reported by the Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities.
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