When I’m reading science news MIT is the most common university whose name comes up for cutting edge research, I’d say 1/3-1/4 of the articles I read are based out of research in MIT. I know other universities in the US are on about the same level like caltech, and I have heard Tsinghua be called the MIT of China. What other research universities are held at the same level of esteem and are doing as much cutting edge research as MIT?
I know your thread title states international, but I used to work at MIT (Stratton Center W20 in the house!) and most Beavers will admit to having more than a passing interest in what happens over at CalTech. That’s the only school that impresses the masses there (though most won’t admit it initially).
Harvard makes them giggle. First time I felt my education was a liability.
I’d imagine to even be competitive with MIT, a school would have to be able to pull down the research dollars in comparable numbers to MIT. Being that we have some pretty substantial R&D funds heading over to 77 Massachusetts Avenue, I think it would be really hard to compete with MIT. There’s also the history part, physical plant, reputation, etc. thing that is very hard to replicate.
I also recall that a MIT guy admitted that he almost went to Purdue.
As Hippy Hollow says, the sheer amount of funding at MIT makes it hard for anywhere to do anything like the same research. But for sake of comparison, the most prominent universities in the UK for similar work (bearing in mind all UK unis are both research & teaching institutions) are perhaps Cambridge, Imperial College, Manchester - and I don’t know how high Oxford ranks alongside these for science research.
Stanford, CMU, UC Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech, Cornell.
IIT has been called the MIT of India.