Times Higher Education, or THE, ranked UC Berkeley as the eighth-best university out of more than 1,600 universities across the world in its 2022 World University Rankings list.

Despite dropping one spot from 2021, campus maintains its position as the only public university to rank in the top ten listings. 

“It is always gratifying to see UC Berkeley recognized as the best public university in the United States and among the best in the world, public or private,” said campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore. “It is a reflection of the extraordinary work of our faculty, students and staff.”

Gilmore added that campus ranks especially high in research, teaching and citations, which she said is “keeping with (its) mission.” She also noted that campus teaches nearly twice the amount of students as the other schools in the top 10, which include Oxford University, the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

According to a THE article explaining the methodology behind the rankings, the organization categorizes universities on the basis of five main attributes, with a large emphasis on teaching, research and citations, and a smaller consideration of international outlook and industry income.

To evaluate teaching and learning, THE conducts an annual Academic Reputation survey to examine the “perceived prestige” of institutions, along with studying the staff to student ratio and the amount of support for postgraduate research students.

Furthermore, the organization measures the productivity of an institution’s research facilities by counting the number of published papers, scaled to the university’s size.

Ellie Bothwell, THE reporter, noted in the article that universities that published high-impact research reports on COVID-19 saw a boost in their rankings, which impacted universities in China, including Peking University and Tsinghua University.