TEHRAN - Times Higher Education has published its annual ranking of the world’s top universities for 2020, listing 40 Iranian universities among them.

Iran has 11 more ranked universities compared to the last year’s listing to take its representation up to 40 institutions, according to The Times Higher Education website.

Babol Noshirvani University of Technology tops the list of Iranian universities with 5,744 full-time equivalent (FTE) students, 29.6 students per staff, and 32:68 female to male ratio, making it to the 351–400 bracket. 

Yasouj University fell in the 401–500 bracket, while Amirkabir University of Technology, University of Kashan, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Sharif University of Technology, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences all fell in the 501–600 bracket.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are the only global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. It includes almost 1,400 universities across 92 countries, standing as the largest and most diverse university rankings ever to date.

For the fourth year in a row, the University of Oxford leads the rankings in first place, while the University of Cambridge falls to third. The California Institute of Technology rises three places to second, while Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Imperial College London all appear in the top ten.

Mainland China now provides both of Asia’s top two universities, with Tsinghua and Peking universities finishing at 23rd and 24th place respectively. The country’s universities have continued to expand their influence and presence on the world stage.

The U.S. is, once again, extremely well-represented among the global elite, while Canada’s top universities have risen up the table.

In Europe, Italy’s top institutions all make headway among the elite top 200 and German representation remains strong. However, the UK faces declines.

The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research (volume, income and reputation); Citations (research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and Industry Income (knowledge transfer) with the following percentages:

• Teaching (the learning environment): 30%; Reputation survey: 15%; Staff-to-student ratio: 4.5%; Doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio: 2.25%; Doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio: 6%; Institutional income: 2.25%
• Research (volume, income and reputation): 30%; Reputation survey: 18%; Research income: 6%; Research productivity: 6%
• Citations (research influence): 30%.
• International outlook (staff, students, research): 7.5%; Proportion of international students: 2.5%; Proportion of international staff: 2.5%; International collaboration: 2.5%
• Industry income (knowledge transfer): 2.5%