Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, MIT — women to lead 4 out of 5 best universities in world

THE World University Rankings 2023 data also shows that nearly a quarter, 48 of the world’s top 200 universities, have women presidents or vice-chancellors.

Of the top 200 universities, 2.5 per cent (or 10 per cent of female-led institutions) are led by women of colour. (Representative image. File)

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For the first time ever, four out of the top five universities in the world — Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — will be led by women. This will come true by July this year, according to information provided by the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2023.

Oxford (first in THE’s World University Rankings) is currently headed by Irene Tracey; Claudine Gay at Harvard (second) and Deborah Prentice at Cambridge (joint third) will both take up their leadership roles in July and Sally Kornbluth currently leads MIT (fifth).

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THE World University Rankings 2023 data also shows that nearly a quarter, 48 of the world’s top 200 universities, have women presidents or vice-chancellors. This has increased from last year when there were 43 women in the top positions. There are 12 per cent more women in these positions than last year and 41 per cent more than five years ago.

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This increase is a result of the uptick of appointments in the US and Germany. According to the data, the US has a high proportion of the top 200 universities led by women (16 out of 58). Additionally, of the top 200 universities, 2.5 per cent (or 10 per cent of women-led institutions) are led by women of colour.

Five leading German universities are headed by women – three more than last year. This includes the University of Tübingen’s Karla Pollmann, the University of Freiburg’s Kerstin Krieglstein and the Technical University of Berlin’s Geraldine Rauch who became the first women to preside over their institutions.

The same is true for other European countries such as France (3 out of 5), the Netherlands (5 out of 10) and the UK (8 out of 28).

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In Asia, too, women have been climbing the ladder. Neuroscientist Nancy Ip became President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, becoming the first woman leader of a top 200 university in the region in the past five years. It has been at the institution for nearly 20 years and is its fifth president and the first woman in the role.

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Saudi Arabia also has a woman leader but in an interim position. Hana Abdullah Al-Nuaim is the interim woman leader of the largest university in Saudi Arabia – King Abdulaziz University.

These figures have shown that there has been a constant year-on-year increase of woman top bosses in global universities — 43 in 2022, 41 in 2021, 39 in 2020 and 34 in 2019 and 2018.

While this comes as good news and brings hope for equality, THE data also revealed that out of the 27 countries that featured universities in the top 200, 12 countries (44 per cent) did not have any women leading their top institutions.

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