As another academic year beckons, various university rankings are currently being bandied around, listing the best universities one can hope to study in.

These rankings, including the Global Universities Ranking, 4 International Colleges and Universities and the Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, complement ones published by The Times Higher Education (THE) and the global educational and career group QS. THE and QS used to generate the university barometer list together; however, this year they went their separate ways after ­adopting different methodological criteria.

The result of this separation is clearly reflected in the end product as, starting from the top place, there are few parallels between the lists.

While the University of Cambridge tops the QS list for the first time after seven years of Harvard dominance, Harvard University maintains its grip on the top spot in THE.

In this same survey, further down the line, one notices other significant divergences as British universities seem to lose their grip on the top 10, though they retain their strength in the QS rankings, as other universities in non-English speaking countries such as Switzerland, Japan and Hong Kong seek to close the gap with their more historically decorated counterparts.

These discrepancies seem to justify the ‘something is awry’ comment made by the University Ranking Watch blog when commenting on the anomalies produced by these results. More crucially, policymakers around the world should question the soundness of any decisions they take based on such studies.

The subject of university rankings is developed further in the first issue of The Insiter, available in all higher education institutions as from tomorrow. The Insiter is the monthly publication produced by Insite, the student media organisation.