Imperial and UCL in top 10 of the world’s best universities

Two London universities have been ranked among the top 10 in the world.

University College, London, and Imperial are fourth and seventh respectively in today's QS world university rankings.

King's College, London, made it to number 21, while Cambridge was named as the best. It is the first time in seven years that Harvard in the United States has been beaten into second position.

The list is based on research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the faculties and student bodies are. It comes after a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said that Britain was lagging behind other countries in public spending on higher education. Poland, Slovenia, Germany, the US and Canada have all overtaken the UK.

John O'Leary, executive member of the QS academic advisory board, said Harvard lost its place at the top because of a hiring freeze.

The QS list features 31 American universities as well as 15 Asian ones, led by the University of Hong Kong at 23.

Mr O'Leary said so many British and US universities are ranked highly because English is the favoured language of academia.

He said: "In general terms, if you're publishing in a language most researchers aren't using you're not going to be picked up and cited in the mainstream journals."