Yes, it's interesting to hypothesise what the younger schools that do break into the top rankings are doing right. E.g., Stanford, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon in t

Yes, it's interesting to hypothesise what the younger schools that do break into the top rankings are doing right. E.g., Stanford, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon in the U.S.. It seems to be a combination of heavy private investment, recruitment of name brand faculty, and structuring of internal incentives to be a competitive (grant-winning) institution.