The Center for World-Class Universities based at Shanghai Jiao Tong University released its 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities Wednesday.

China has 42 universities in the top 500 this year, overtaking the UK, which has 38 universities on the list, although none of the Chinese universities are included in the top 100 yet. Among the 42 universities, 28 are based on the Chinese mainland, five more than last year.

Harvard University was once again named the world's best university, by academic performance standards, for the tenth consecutive year. The United States still performed the best worldwide, with a total of 150 universities included in the top 500, of which 53 spots in the top 100, and 17 in the top 20.

Also see:Top 20 unversities in the world by academic performance

Since 2003, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) uses six objective indicators to rank the world's universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of Highly Cited Researchers, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, the number of articles indexed in the Science Citation - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Indexes, and per capita performance. Over 1200 universities are ranked by ARWU every year and the top 500 make it onto the list.

Here are the top 15 academic universities in China this year:

   University of Science and Technology of China (中國科學技術大學)

World rank: 201-300

Location:Hefei, Anhui

The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) was originally established in Beijing in 1958 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) with the aim of cultivating the country's most promising scientific and technological talent. In the early 1970s, the university relocated from Beijing to Hefei, capital city of Anhui Province. Now, USTC has eight national key programs in first-level disciplines, four national key programs in second-level disciplines, two programs enjoying major national support and 19 programs benefiting from major provincial and ministerial support.

Website:http://en.ustc.edu.cn/