Posted: 29th April 2015

The 2015 QS world university rankings for computer science and information systems puts the University of Oxford third in the world, and top in Europe.  Oxford climbed up the table four places, overtaking Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, University of California Berkeley, and the University of Cambridge, scoring particularly highly in areas such as Employer Reputation (100) and Academic Reputation (87.6). 

Four British universities made the top 15: with Cambridge taking 7^th position, the University of Edinburgh 14^th and Imperial College London 15^th. 

The rankings highlight the world’s top universities in 36 individual subjects, based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. They are calculated by combining the results of surveys of 85,000 academics and almost 42,000 employers, along with analysis of millions of research papers and academic citations. The tables mainly measure research, although universities must have undergraduate or postgraduate courses in relevant subjects to qualify. Subject tables are weighted to reflect higher numbers of citations in science-based subjects and lower employer recognition for specialised subjects, especially in the arts and humanities.

Looking beyond the Computer Science subject table, Britain’s top universities continue to dominate many of the main academic disciplines across the globe, despite mounting competition from universities in Asia. The latest edition of the rankings puts Cambridge in the world’s top ten in 31 different subjects, more than any other in the world. Oxford holds joint second place with Stanford, both featuring in the global top ten in 29 subjects, followed by Harvard with 28.

Full details of the QS world university rankings 2015: computer science and information systems are available from: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/qs-world-university-rankings-2015-computer-science-and-information-systems