The top 10 has not changed compared to 2018, with eight American and two British universities taking the top spots.
The Shanghai ranking, highly anticipated by the academic world, has just been released and places the University of Luxembourg between the 701st and 800th position — quite impressive given that the (small) university was only established in 2003.
It's not all good news, however, as the 2019 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (or 'ARWU') sees the University of Luxembourg dropping from 601-700 to 701-800, but even this slight drop keeps the only Luxembourg university in the prestigious ranking of the 1000 best universities in the world.
Finding yourself in this list is quite an achievement when you consider that the International Association of Universities says there are some 19,000 universities globally.
Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge rather unexpectedly form the top three. Among our neighbours, we find the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in 19th place while the University of Paris South (Paris 11) is positioned in 37th and the Sorbonne in 44th position.
The Shanghai ranking takes into account six criteria, including the number of Nobel and Fields medals among graduate students and professors, the number of researchers most cited in their discipline, and the number of publications in top journals.
