The Times Higher Education (THE) has released its World University Rankings with some surprising results.

In the eight years that the THE has published a global university ranking, Harvard University has held firm its position as the world's number one. But not this year.

The 375-year-old institution has been knocked off the top spot by a younger and smaller school from the West Coast of the US. The world's number one for 2011-12 is the California Institute of Technology, otherwise known as Caltech.

The margin is tiny however; the gap last year between first-placed Harvard and second-placed Caltech was 0.1 point. Universities worldwide are judged over five headline categories: Teaching, Research, Citations, Industry income and International outlook. The THE explains that it “looks for excellence in teaching, research and knowledge transfer, and rewards an international outlook.”

The judging has been so tight this year that not only has Harvard been knocked off the top spot, it also has to share second place with another Californian institution - Stanford University.

The US clearly dominates the 2011-12 charts with the highest number of institutions in the world's top 200, but outside the US, the UK is holding on to second place, with 32 institutions in the top 200, including three of the top 10 and seven of the top 50.

Last year, Oxford and Cambridge shared sixth place, but Oxford has now beaten Cambridge to fourth place, while Cambridge hasn’t moved at sixth place.

UK universities and science minister David Willetts, told the THE, “relative to our size and smaller per capita resources, we have...the best-performing higher education sector in the world."

But, Ann Mroz, editor of the THE , said it was important that older institutions do not "rest on their laurels".

She said, “With as many as 7 million students predicted to be studying outside their home country within the next few years, and with international research collaboration at the top of government agendas, these world university rankings are more important than ever."

"Higher education is essential to the success of national economies, but when it comes to universities, the old order can no longer rest on its laurels. New powers are emerging, traditional hierarchies are facing challenges, the global competition for talent is heating up and these league tables help us understand this rapidly changing situation.”

The Top 20

	World Rank	Institution	Country / Region
	1	California Institute of Technology	United States
	2	Harvard University	United States
	2	Stanford University	United States
	4	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
	5	Princeton University	United States
	6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
	7	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
	8	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
	9	University of Chicago	United States
	10	University of California, Berkeley	United States
	11	Yale University	United States
	12	Columbia University	United States
	13	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
	14	Johns Hopkins University	United States
	15	ETH Zürich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich	Switzerland
	16	University of Pennsylvania	United States
	17	University College London	United Kingdom
	18	University of Michigan	United States
	19	University of Toronto	Canada
	20	Cornell University