The QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings based on quality. Its 16th edition was released on Thursday by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British company specialising in education. The rankings cover the world's best 1,000 universities.
The University of Zagreb is the only Croatian university included in the rankings and is ranked 305th in Europe. Compared to universities in the region, it is included in the same group as the University of Maribor, while the University of Ljubljana is placed #591-600, up from #651-700. The University of Belgrade is ranked #810-1000, the same as in the previous rankings.
The top spot has been held for eight straight years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by the US universities of Stanford and Harvard. The best placed European and British university is Oxford, ranking fourth, while its ancient rival Cambridge slipped to seventh place.
The highest ranked university in continental Europe is ETH Zurich, climbing to sixth place.
The two best Asian universities are again those from Singapore, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, both ranking 11th. The highest ranked university in Latin America is Universidad de Buenos Aires, placing 74th.
QS uses six indicators in ranking universities: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty, the faculty/student ratio, the proportion of international faculty and the proportion of international students.