(Bloomberg News) Harvard University lost its top spot for the first time in eight years in a global ranking of higher education institutions, being overtaken by the California Institute of Technology.
Another California institution, Stanford University, tied with Harvard for second spot in the annual table compiled by the London-based Times Higher Education, with data supplied by Thomson Reuters Corp. The University of Oxford climbed to fourth from sixth last year, beating the University of Cambridge at sixth. Princeton University came fifth.
Harvard, the world's richest university, has topped the rankings since 2004. The U.S. institution was beaten by Cambridge last month in a separate poll by higher education information provider QS. A 16 percent increase in research funding for Caltech helped it leapfrog Harvard in the Times Higher table, according to Phil Baty, editor of the rankings.
"The difference between Harvard and Caltech last year was minuscule," Baty said in a telephone interview. "What's happened this year is Caltech has seen a significant increase in its research income. A 16 percent increase, it's quite significant in tipping the balance over in its favor. Harvard had an increase as well, but it was more in line with sector averages."
The rankings are based on a survey that gauges universities across five areas, including industry income, teaching, citations, research and international outlook. More than 17,500 academics were surveyed and 50 million citations analyzed and compared with the world average for this year's rankings.
"It doesn't seem as if financial crisis has really damaged Harvard," said Baty. "It still wins on the teaching indicator. Once you factor in research impact and universities' research activities, Caltech is slightly better."
U.S. and U.K. universities dominated the list, with 75 American schools in the top 200. Seven of the top 10 schools were in the U.S., with the rest in Britain, Imperial College London taking eighth place.
"The real issue that's starting to show is that the great public American universities do seem to be suffering, whereas the private universities in America have managed to maintain or protect their funding levels a bit more," Baty said.
Premier U.S. universities that depend on public funding, including Californian universities at Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara, had slipped on the list compared with a year ago, Baty said.
"Caltech is fortunate to have steadfast donors and partners whose support gives Caltech the ability to invest in new ideas long before they would be eligible for public funding opportunities," Dr. Jean-Lou Chameau, president of Caltech, said in an e-mailed statement. "This public-private partnership model enables our research funds to go further."