Times Higher Education will publish a new ranking of the world’s best universities established between 1945 and 1966 – what THE describes as the “Golden Age” in global higher education, characterised by rapid university expansion and increasing investment in research.
The THE Golden Age Universities Ranking will be released in April alongside the annual THE ranking of the world’s best universities under the age of 50, which will include 200 institutions, up from 150 last year.
THE has published a list of the world’s best young universities since 2012, but the new top-100 table will reveal the top “middle-aged” universities, many of which benefit from the combination of having an established history but still being relatively young, innovative and flexible.
The period between 1945 and 1966 saw an extraordinary expansion of higher education and a major increase in investment in university research. For example, in the US, this era saw several additions to the University of California System, while the early 1960s were a landmark era in the UK, where the 1963 Robbins report heralded the birth of “plate glass” universities.
The rankings will be published at 15:01 BST on 5 April (00:01 Sydney time on 6 April) during the THE Young Universities Summit at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia.
Summit delegates will be given exclusive access to the THE Young University Rankings results several hours before the global release time.
