The rise in ranking enjoyed by Queen's this year contrasts with the overall trend in UK universities, which has seen 56 of the 84 participating universities drop at least one place.

Commenting on Queen's rankings progress, Professor Richard English, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation and Engagement, said:

"Queen's enhanced performance in the QS World University Rankings 2020 is a testament to the hard work being carried out across the institution. In such a competitive global Higher Education sector, it is rewarding to know that our stock is rising internationally.

"Indeed, our new ranking – Queen's best performance in these rankings in the last five years – provides an opportunity for us to reflect on and celebrate the fact that we are an international university.

"I would like to thank all our staff who have helped us achieve this rankings rise. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to our academic colleagues who have helped ensure an improvement in our academic reputation and citations per faculty."

The QS World University Rankings are compiled using six metrics that evaluate overall university performance: Academic Reputation; Employer Reputation; Faculty/Student Ratio; Citations per faculty; International Faculty Ratio; and International Student Ratio.

Find out more about the QS World University Rankings 2020 and the methodology used here.