Ranked: The World's Best Universities in 2018

The U.S. and the U.K. continue to lead the pack when it comes to the best universities in the world. That's according to The Times ' Higher Education Rankings, released earlier this month. The British newspaper ranked the top 1,000 universities in the world, taking into account teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

The U.S. and U.K. dominate the top spots, with only one university from outside of these two countries making it into the top 20.

Men continue to make up the majority of students in the top institutions. The University of Pennsylvania is the only university in the top 10 with gender parity in its student body. The rest are majority male; less than a third of students at the California Institute of Technology are female.

Some Asian countries, including China and Singapore, have been pouring money into their universities in recent years, and it looks as though the investment is paying off. For the first time, there are three Asian universities in the top 30.

However, it's a different story in the U.S. Nearly all of America's top 200 universities saw a decline in their research income per academic staff member. The Trump administration has announced cuts to university grants and funding, casting doubts on the future levels of federal research income.

As more players enter the fray, the global market for higher education has never been more competitive. Who comes out on top: Ivy League or Oxbridge? Find out as we count down the top 50 universities in the world in 2018.