Oxford celebrates being ranked best university in the world for eleventh time
Watch ITV Meridian Social Affairs Correspondent Christine Alsford's full interview with the University of Oxford's Vice Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey
The University of Oxford is celebrating after being named as the top university in the world for the eleventh consecutive year.
Vice Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey described the milestone - which was awarded by the Times Higher Education world rankings - as "like winning the World Cup over and over again".
The rankings are the most comprehensive assessment of global research universities - and are based on the analysis of data from more than, 3,000 universities around the globe, with a big emphasis on research.
Seven of the top ten places this year went to American universities, including Stanford, Yale and Harvard.
Three UK universities made the top ten: Oxford took the number one spot, Cambridge was ranked fifth and Imperial College London achieved eighth.
Professor Tracey said they are all thrilled by the news
Professor Tracey said: "We're absolutely thrilled. It's a great testament to all the students and the staff that work here. It's something quite remarkable."
She said the university's success is down to fantastic students, a culture where people feel there are no limits, generous funding from philanthropists and strong research partnerships domestically and globally.
The University of Oxford has some 26,000 students and employs around 6,000 people in the city.
"We are a big heavyweight research intensive university," said Professor Tracey.
"In medical sciences, we are the only university in the world that has produced a vaccine for the Ebola outbreak.
"We've got this array of fantastic cancer vaccines, that we announced earlier this year, for bowel cancer and ovarian cancer. We really hope that they will save lives."
She said the university is also pushing the frontiers of artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change.
The gap between Oxford and its closest rival - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - is now wafer thin.
There was only 0.1 of a point between their overall scores. Oxford scored higher on metrics like international co-authorship of research, but MIT scored better on factors including student-staff ratios.
"The race is getting much, much tighter," said Professor Tracey. "There's enormous competition at the top.
"Every year since I've been in post, it's like, there's only one way to go when you're number one, you know, and that's downwards, and yet we're hanging in there.
"We've got pressures… The fee that the students pay doesn't cover the cost of the teaching and we are subsidising that.
"So it's really tight and with the geopolitics and headwinds financially with inflation, with the energy costs, that puts pressure on already quite a pressurised system."
Professor Tracey said that now is a good opportunity to have a conversation about the importance of Britain's higher education sector
Oxford's ongoing dominance for more than a decade is particularly impressive this year amid a strong performance from Asian Universities, following heavy investment.
They have overtaken continental Europe for the first time in the history of the rankings.
Other UK universities that also featured in the Times Higher Education global rankings included the University of Southampton, which was ranked 136th, and the University of Reading, which was 219th.
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