The report presents results for the 2015 Universitas 21 annual ranking of national systems of higher education and explains the methodology used to obtain the results. The essential logic behind the development of national rankings is that it is the higher education system as a whole, not just research intensive universities, that matters for the economic and cultural development of a nation.
Rankings are provided for each module as well as an overall ranking. Aggregating to obtain an overall ranking, the top ten countries are the United States, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. Comparing the rankings with those of two years ago, the larger movements are correlated with changes in economic circumstances: China, South Africa, Chile and Hungary improving; Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain and Turkey falling.
We calculate a second overall ranking by looking at how countries rate compared with what is the expected performance at their level of GDP per capita.
Full details of the methodology and results can be found in the report which can be downloaded below. The data from this year is also included within the rankings comparison table.