The guide's league table is compiled using a number of criteria including student satisfaction, research quality, academic peer review, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, drop-out rates and graduate employment levels.

BBC: University of Bath ranked third in Sunday Times guide

That is the conclusion of a survey of the academic literature published in peer review journals since 1983 by William McBride of the Tax Foundation.

FORBES: Academics Have Spoken, And Obamanomics Is The Path To Slow Growth

Much of the research money governments disburse is allocated on academic merit, determined by peer review, not by bureaucratic fiat.

ECONOMIST: The knowledge factory

The details come from a report in The New York Times, which couches the news by explaining that the paper has not yet gone through peer review, an academic process by which new research is first vetted by others in the field.

FORBES: Q: Why Did the Investor Cross the Road?

Such lapses of integrity are not unique to China, but poor peer-review mechanisms, misguided incentives and a lack of checks on academic behaviour all allow fraud to be more common.

ECONOMIST: Academic fraud in China

Their view is that working papers are for review by your peers, and only once you have published in a peer-reviewed academic journal should you circulate for a wider public, having gained the endorsement of the profession.

FORBES: Insolvency and English Football