America 'best in the world' for social sciences, according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings

Continental Europe, again, sees a stronger year on 2014/15

(Dominick Reuter via Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)/Facebook)

The US has been named the best in the world for providing courses in social sciences, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings top ten list.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has taken the top spot, followed by Stanford and Princeton. Only one non-US institution has featured in the top ten as the UK’s Oxford came in at number four.

Editor of the rankings, Phil Baty, acknowledged America’s stellar performance in the complete top 100 and said: “The US still dominates this table, claiming nine of the top ten spots - and 43 institutions overall - as other countries fail to make a dent in America’s world-class social science base.”

Continental Europe has, again, seen stronger performance this year. Nordic institutions, with universities from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden all newly ranked in the top 100.

On Europe’s performance, Baty said: “Part of this reflects methodological improvements, specifically the move from Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science to Elsevier’s larger Scopus database, but it also indicates progress in these countries’ social sciences research, which now has greater international clout.”

The editor also described how, just like THE’s flagship World University Rankings, the social sciences one applies rigorous standards, using tough global benchmarks across all of a global research university’s key missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

However, although the table employs the same range of 13 performance indicators, he said have been carefully re-calibrated to fit more closely the research culture in this subject.

To see the complete list of 100, click here