Date Created: 06 October 2011
Five Scottish universities have been placed in the top 200 of the world's higher education institutions.
The World University Ranking 2011 – 2012 placed the University of Edinburgh at 36th place, St Andrews at 85th, Glasgow at 102nd, Aberdeen at 151st and Dundee at 176th.
The list is produced annually by the Times Higher Education magazine. It ranks the world's higher education institutions according to teaching, research, citations in other research, industry income, and international outlook.
This year the California Institute of Technology took first place while Oxford came in fourth. Overall, the list reveals the US as the biggest player in higher education, followed by the UK with 32 of its universities among the top 200.
The majority of the Scottish Universities improved their position in the list from last year and the University of Stirling also appeared in the "best of the rest" top 400, appearing in the 301 to 350 banded list.
Universities Minister David Willetts said the list showed that relative to its size, the UK's university system was the "world's best-performing".
Times Higher Education editor Phil Baty said:
"The top 200 really represents about 1% of the world's entire higher education sector so to have one or two in there is remarkable.
"Scotland has more universities in the 200 than France, for example, so it's a tremendous achievement."
Read more about Scotland’s history of excellence in education