Nanjing University students take group photos after their graduation ceremony. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Times Higher Education in June published its World Reputation Rankings, the list of the world's most prestigious universities compiled from research insight from leading global academics.

Harvard University takes the top spot for the seventh year in a row. With 42 institutions in the top 100, the United States continues to dominate. Chinese universities also enjoyed a good run in this year's rankings.

Tsinghua University is the highest ranking Chinese university, placing 14th, and is the second most prestigious Asia-Pacific university. The third is Peking University, which is 17th overall. Both have gained four places compared with last year's index.

Zhejiang University has performed well, rising 30 places to the joint 51-60 bracket. It overtook both Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, both found in the 81-90 band. Nanjing University has broken into the top 100 for the first time and is ranked 91-100.

The University of Hong Kong features in the top 40 for the first time in five years after climbing six places to joint 39th. The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology are in the 71-80 band.

In total, the Asia-Pacific has 28 institutions in the ranking, with Japan's University of Tokyo the highest in the region in 11th place.

Phil Baty, Times Higher Education rankings editor, spoke highly of Chinese universities' performance this year. "A striking feature of the World Reputation Rankings is the continued rise of China."

According to the Times, its World Reputation Rankings are created using the world's largest invitation-only academic-opinion survey－a unique piece of research. The Academic Reputation Survey, available in 15 languages, uses United Nations data as a guide to ensure that the response coverage is as representative of world scholarship as possible. It is also evenly spread across academic disciplines.

The questionnaire, which is administered on behalf of the Times by Elsevier, targets only experienced, published scholars, who offer their views on excellence in research and teaching within their disciplines and at institutions with which they are familiar. The 2017 rankings are based on a survey carried out between January and March, which received 10,566 responses.

Times Higher Education is one of the world's most authoritative sources of information about higher education.