Two Israeli universities named among world's best

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University break the top 100 list on the 'Times Higher Education' annual ranking.

By BEN HARTMAN
Hebrew University, Jerusalem_311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Hebrew University, Jerusalem_311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
A British weekly has named two Israeli universities among the top 100 in the world, in its annual ranking of the best universities.
The Times Higher Education World Top Universities by Reputation 2012 ranked the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 61-70 range and Tel Aviv University in the 81-90 range.
Ankara’s Middle East Technical University was the only other university in the Middle East to make the list, coming in at the 91-100 range.
This wasn’t the first time that Israeli universities were recognized by the publication.
The Hebrew University was ranked the 121st best university in the world and Tel Aviv University the 166th in the publication’s World University Rankings 2011-2012. On the same list, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Bar-Ilan University were ranked in the 201-225 range and 301-350 range respectively.
According to the weekly, the rankings of universities are determined according to the “overall measure of their esteem that combines data on their reputation for research and teaching.” The scores are combined with a 2:1 ratio, with more weight given to research.
The publication arrives at the scores by calculating the number of times respondents cite an institution as “the best” in their field of expertise. Each respondent was able to nominate up to 15 institutions, the Times Higher Education said.
The reason the Israeli universities are listed in groups of 10 is because according to the Times Higher Education, “the differentials between institutions after the top 50 becomes very narrow.”