RIYADH — King Abdulaziz University (KAU) of Jeddah emerged tops among the list of the best higher education institutions out of 157 universities in the Arab world. According to the annual classification of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021, five Saudi universities are in the list of the top 10 Arab universities for the year 2021. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) ranked third while Prince Muhammad Bin Fahd University of Al-Khobar is fourth; King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran ranked fifth, and King Saud University of Riyadh is in the eighth position. The survey, carried out by The Times Higher Education magazine, covered more than 1,500 universities across 93 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date. Oxford University tops the world rankings for the fifth year in a row, while Stanford University and Harvard University, both from the United States, are in the second and third positions. The United States took record eight places in the top ten, after the University of California at Berkeley rose six places to seventh. Tsinghua University of China became the first Asian university to be included in the top 20. The list is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. This year’s ranking analyzed more than 80 million citations across over 13 million research publications and included survey responses from 22,000 scholars globally. Trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts, this year’s Times index provides great insight into the shifting balance of power in global higher education.