No pressure, but where you decide to go to uni will probably set the course for the rest of your life, so it’s kind of important to pick the right place to study. And while some of us might opt for stuff like a good-looking campus or opportunities to study abroad , many prospective students are primarily concerned with good old academic excellence.

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings is a trusted league table that ranks institutions based on just that, and the 2026 list has just landed . Eighteen performance indicators are considered to create the list, including teaching, research environment, research quality, industry and international outlook – in other words, the unis that rank highly are the absolute cream of the crop.

So, what exactly is the

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