The UK has lost its title as the country which has educated the most world leaders - losing out this year to the US.
Of the serving monarchs, presidents and prime ministers who have undertaken higher education abroad, 57 were educated in the UK compared to 58 in the US.
Last year, the numbers were reversed, giving the UK the top spot.
According to the report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), both countries remained ahead of the pack, however, with France taking the number three spot for educating 40 world leaders.
READ MORE: Rail fares are increasing twice as fast as wages, new analysis shows
Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, said countries which educate world leaders "build incredible soft power" - and warned that the UK's immigration policies put it at risk of losing international influence.
"In the past, we have been more successful than any other country in attracting the world's future leaders," he said. "But these new figures suggest our position could be slipping.
"To ensure this does not become a long-term trend, we need to adopt a bold educational exports strategy, remove students from the main migration target and roll out the red carpet when people come to study here.
"One practical way to make all that happen would be to end the Home Office having complete control over student migration and to share it across government departments instead, as they do in other countries."
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson backs 'Amazon tax' for online retailers
Leaders educated in the UK include Australian prime minister Malcolm Tunbull, who studied at the University of Oxford, Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who took degrees at Oxford and SOAS during the 1960s and 1980s, and Gambian president Adama Barrow, who worked as an Argos security guard while studying property management in London.
Others are now in leadership positions in countries such as Pakistan, Malawi, Singapore and Syria.
READ MORE: Absence of Growth Commission debate at SNP conference branded 'astonishing'
Tom Huxley, an independent researcher who completed the study for HEPI, said the UK was facing "unprecedented competition" for ambitious students from other countries.
"The Government must take student numbers out of its migration target and allow our universities to attract more of the world's best and brightest to study here," he said. "Otherwise, we are at risk of losing our strong links to future world leaders."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here