The latest ranking of the world's top universities has been released by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a leading global career and education network.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world-famous university, continues to rank first. Harvard University moved up one place from last year and is now ranked No 2. The University of Cambridge dropped from last year's second place to the third.

The top 10 is dominated by US- and UK-based universities. ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) ranks 12th.

The QS World University Rankings are annual university rankings which provide overall rankings, as well as rankings for individual subjects. It is regarded one of the world's three most influential and widely observed international university rankings, along with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Its criteria include academic peer reviews, faculty student ratio, citations per faculty, recruiter reviews and international orientation.

The following are the top 10 universities in the world 2013.

Princeton University [File photo]

No 10: Princeton University

Overall score: 96.1

Country: United States

Last year's ranking: 9th

Academic reputation: 100

Employer reputation: 95.1

Faculty student: 96.3

International faculty: 76.3

International students: 68.8

Citation per faculty: 98.8