The Best Global Universities ranking by U.S. News & World Report is an annual ranking of world universities. On October 28, 2014, U.S. News, which began ranking American universities in 1983, published its inaugural global ranking, assessing 500 universities in 49 countries. That first installment of the Best Global University Ranking was published without prior announcement, with U.S. News later clarifying that the rankings of that year were a trial balloon for the publication's entrance into the global university rankings field.