One of the most striking findings of The Times Higher Education Supplement’s survey of the world’s best universities is the position on it of the jewel of German learning. Heidelberg University, the oldest and most eminent in the country of Luther and Einstein, is ranked 47th. France fares little better. Its top-ranked university is the Ecole Polytechnique, at 27th. No southern European country has a single university in the Top 150; China and Malaysia each have two, and India and Taiwan one.

Britain emerges as the only European country able to claim a leadership role in academic research, with two universities in the Top Ten and 29 in the Top 200. Australia is the powerhouse of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region, with six universities in the Top 200, and the US sweeps all before it: the world’s four “best” universities are American, as are seven of the Top Ten and 20 of the Top 50.

Lists are invidious, and academics famously jealous. This survey will inevitably be criticised as biased towards the English-speaking world and to institutions that actively recruit students and staff abroad, since two of its five criteria measure these recruitment levels. It may also be vulnerable to claims that it offers a crude ranking at best of the overall quality of undergraduate teaching, and attaches disproportionate importance to excellence in cutting-edge biomedical science (which generates an unusual volume of citations in the academic literature). But the criteria used are relevant. They are also applicable with reasonable fairness across the wide range of cultures and administrative systems that any global survey involves. And they offer powerful evidence of the relative success of universities freed from restrictive rules on academic career paths and from undue government control of policies on admissions and fees.

In Britain, this emancipation dates from the early 1980s and Margaret Thatcher’s insistence, deeply unpopular at the time, that foreign students be charged full tuition fees for degree courses. Fears that diverse student bodies would give way to all-British institutions proved unfounded. Instead, with notable help from the British Council, foreign student numbers rose steadily despite the option open to them of virtually free university places elsewhere in Europe. The usefulness of the English language was, and remains, a factor. But so, also, is the sheer quality of education in universities with high staff-to-student ratios and vigorous research programmes unconstrained by micromanagement and spurious reverence for seniority.

In the US, an entrepreneurial spirit has animated higher education for much longer. The costs to individual students can be a grave deterrent, but the results in terms of simple excellence are impressive. Britain’s own model is evolving rapidly and, with less punitive costs, remains attractive to the brightest from around the world. Competition has brought out the best in Britain.