The Shanghai list of Academic Ranking of World Universities, (ARWU) was released on Thursday and the top ten comprises eight US and two British universities.
Zagreb University was first ranked amongst the best 500 universities in 2011 and is in the 401-500 group alongside Ljubljana University, while Belgrade's University has found itself in the group of universities ranked 301-400.
Of the 500 top universities, 149 are in the United States, 37 in Britain, 38 in Germany and 42 in China.
The Shanghai list has been published since 2003 and is based on a series of indicators of academic and research success among one thousand universities in the world, including students and professors who have been awarded with Nobel prizes or based on the number of scientific articles published in prestigious journals.