September 24, The Iran Project – According to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-2017, 13 Iranian universities were among the world's top 800 universities with Iran University of Science and Technology leading the Iranians table for the first time.

Other Iranian universities listed in the Times World University Rankings are respectively Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, Isfahan University of Technology, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, University of Shiraz, University of Tehran, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Islamic Azad University of Karaj, Shahid Beheshti University, University of Yazd, and University of Zanjan.

The top universities rankings use 13 performance indicators, like Teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook, to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available.

Times rankings for the first time this year, has analyzed more than half a million books and the research output of 11.9 million.

This year's list of the best universities in the world features 148 of the top universities in the U.S. with 63 American universities making the top 200, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as the world’s No. 2 university, followed by Stanford University in third place, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in fifth, and Harvard University in sixth.  Oxford University in England was No. 1 overall.