The overall trends of the study showed a dwindling in the US dominance of the league table and a surge in Asian universities claiming places that could rival America’s Ivy League and the UK’s Oxbridge in coming years.

The top 10 was dominated, as usual, by the US and UK institutions with Harvard claiming the top spot for the sixth consecutive year. The University of Cambridge knocked Yale University out of second place. University of Oxford slipped by one place this year down to a joint fifth with Imperial College London. Overall there were four UK universities to the United States six in the top 10.

However the real success story is the Asian institutions, with appearances from institutions in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Malaysia. Japan holds 11 places in the top 200 with the University of Tokyo ranking the highest at 22 and Hong Kong holds five positions, three of them in the top 50 starting with the University of Hong Kong at 24. Mainland China maintains its total of six institutions from last year, South Korea holds two places and Malaysia joined the league table at 180th place with Universiti Malaya.

Long Po Yee, a commenter on the Guardian website said:

“As a Hong Konger, I am really very happy to see that Hong Kong universities are in high quality. For me, I have studied in the Chinese Univeristy of Hong Kong (CUHK), and I felt that is really great and they offered green environment with quality education and facilities.”

You can download the full league table of all 200 universities here or visit the Times Higher Education website for a break down on the scoring for special areas of expertise.