Graduates applaud for The Dalai Lamas commencement address during graduation ceremonies at the University of California-San Diego in San Diego, California, on June 17, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Bill Wechter (Photo credit should read BILL WECHTER/AFP/Getty Images)

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LA JOLLA, Calif. — UC San Diego was named the 5th best public university in the world and the 31st best university overall Tuesday in the annual Times Higher Education rankings.

The rankings were dominated by private institutions, making UCSD one of the highest U.S. public universities on the list.

“Being unbound by tradition has given our campus the liberty to innovate,” Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told London-based Times Higher Education in a featured interview.

“UC San Diego is an experimental campus — our model from day one has been focused on issues and the greater good, rather than disciplines,” Khosla said. “This nontraditional approach allows our students, faculty and researchers to make contributions that benefit society, and our collaborative environment among top scholars propels strengths in disciplines across the board.”

The results are based on criteria that include a reputation survey, staff-to-student ratio, the ratio of doctorates awarded to academic employees, research revenues and productivity, citations, international students and international collaborations among them.

The top five schools were the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge — both in the United Kingdom — the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

UCLA ranked 15th, UC Berkeley 18th, UC Santa Barbara 53rd, UC Davis 54th, USC 66th and UC Irvine 99th.

San Diego State University was included in an unranked range of 401-500.