The state of California has maintained its grip on the Times Higher Education engineering and technology table.

As in previous years, California, the home of the high-tech business hub Silicon Valley, takes three of the top-five places - including the number one spot, retained by the California Institute of Technology.

The Golden State takes seven of the top 50 places (two more than the UK), with an exceptional showing for the research institutions of the University of California system: Berkeley maintains fourth place; Los Angeles is seventh; Santa Barbara is 17th; San Diego comes joint 36th; and Davis follows them in 48th place.

The private Stanford University - whose nearly 90-year-old engineering school claims to have "laid the technological and business foundations for Silicon Valley" - completes California's septet, in joint fifth place. Household names such as Google, Yahoo! and Hewlett-Packard originated there.

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Overall, the US dominates the list, taking almost half of the top 50 places. The country's East Coast is represented in the top 10 by Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But Asia features strongly, too. The region has 11 representatives, its best subject-level performance, led by the Republic of Korea, which has three candidates: the Pohang University of Science and Technology (24th); Seoul National University (joint 36th); and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (44th).

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Asia's highest-ranked institution is the National University of Singapore, which has risen to 12th position.

Meanwhile, Nanyang Technological University leaps from 50th to joint 26th place. Writing in this supplement, Bertil Andersson, Nanyang's president, points out that the 21-year-old university is one of the world's biggest dedicated engineering universities, with two-thirds of the institution devoted to the field.

It scores particularly strongly for its engagement with industry and its international outlook.