LONDON: University College London has overtaken its rival Imperial in the most highly rated world rankings of universities.

UCL climbed three places to 22nd in the annual international rankings published last week by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.

In a statement, UCL said the latest annual tables of research universities indicates that UCL’s place among the world’s leading universities “has risen again”.

UCL president and provost professor Malcolm Grant said: “These new rankings confirm UCL’s strengths – and steady improvement – on the global stage.

“We know that the UCL community conducts excellent research and teaching, but it is our commitment to applying that excellence to the world’s major problems that make us London’s global university.”

Imperial dropped from 23 last year to 27th in the 2008 tables.

The universities of Cambridge and Oxford have maintained their 2007 positions of fourth and 10th in the world respectively.

The tables are dominated by the US universities, with Harvard ranked top in the world, but UK universities continue to be among the best, with five institutions, including UCL and the universities of Manchester and Bristol, improving their international positions on last year.

The UK has 11 universities in the world’s top 100, the second highest number after the US with 54.

The universities of Manchester and Bristol improved on their 2007 standing, climbing eight places to 40th and one place to 61st respectively. Kings College London rose two places to 81st in the world and Birmingham university climbed one place to 91st.Four UK universities slipped down the league table, most notably Imperial.

Sheffield University dropped the most, falling five places to 77th in the world, while Edinburgh University slipped two places to 55th and Nottingham University fell to 82nd in the world from 81st last year.

The figures show that UK universities continue to punch above their weight compared with the performance of institutions in other countries.

For example, Germany invests around six per cent of its gross domestic product in its universities, compared with 4.9 per cent in the UK. But only six German institutions are among the top 100 compared with 11 from the UK.

Seventeen of the top 20 institutions are from the US. The universities of Harvard, Stanford, and California, Berkeley, maintained their 2007 first, second and third places in the league table respectively.—Dawn/Guardian News Service