The University of Edinburgh has placed 19th in the QS World University Rankings 2016/17, just ahead of Columbia University and King’s College London.

The ranking puts Edinburgh fifth in the UK — behind Cambridge, Oxford, University College London and Imperial College London — and first in Scotland.

The University of Glasgow and University of St Andrews also ranked highly — with Glasgow placed 63rd in the world and St Andrews placed 77th.

Almost 75,000 academics and 38,000 employers contributed to the rankings through the QS global surveys, the largest of their kind.

QS said it analyzed 10.3 million research papers and 66.3 million citations, indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database.

More than 3,800 institutions were considered for inclusion and 916 were ranked.

Edinburgh was ranked 24th in the world for research quality by QS.

Edinburgh also rose six places to 41st in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), known as the Shanghai Rankings.

The latest Shanghai rankings highlighted the increasing number of Edinburgh researchers listed among the most highly cited academics in the world.

The Shanghai rankings also take into account the volume of research papers published and alumni and staff who have won Nobel Prizes.

Edinburgh ranked 24th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-16, and the 2016/17 rankings will be announced on September 21.

“Our rise in the various world league tables is very welcome and reflects the quality, hard work and dedication of our students and staff,” said Professor Timothy O’Shea, Principal of the University of Edinburgh.

“The rankings reflect Edinburgh’s position as an international university with a truly global outlook.

“We look forward to continued strong collaboration with researchers and institutions around the world and producing world-leading research which has the potential to change people’s lives for the better.”