Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) also known as the Shanghai Ranking is one of the most influential and widely recognized university ranking systems in the world.

History of ARWU

First published in June 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities (CWCU) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ARWU quickly became a trusted global benchmark for higher education performance. Since 2009, the ranking has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, an independent organization specializing in higher education intelligence.

ARWU Ranking Methodology

Unlike many other university rankings, ARWU uses six objective indicators to evaluate universities worldwide:

1. Nobel Prize & Fields Medal Winners – number of alumni and staff awarded.
2. Highly Cited Researchers – as recognized by Clarivate Analytics.
3. Publications in Nature & Science – articles published in top-tier journals.
4. Indexed Research Output – papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
5. Per Capita Academic Performance – overall research performance per faculty.
6. Comprehensive Research Impact – combining all indicators into a weighted score.

Global Reach

Each year, ARWU actually ranks more than 2,500 universities worldwide, but only the top 1,000 universities are officially published. This makes it a highly selective and prestigious global ranking system.

Why ARWU Matters

The Shanghai Ranking is respected for its objectivity and reliance on research excellence, rather than subjective surveys. Students, academics, and policymakers use ARWU to evaluate global higher education institutions, compare university strengths, and guide study or collaboration decisions.

Top 100 Universities – ARWU 2025

2025 Rank	2024 Rank	Institution	Country/Region
1	1	Harvard University	United States
2	2	Stanford University	United States
3	3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4	4	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
5	5	University of California, Berkeley	United States
6	6	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
7	7	Princeton University	United States
8	8	Columbia University	United States
9	9	California Institute of Technology	United States
10	10	University of Chicago	United States
11	11	Yale University	United States
12	12	Cornell University	United States
13	12	Paris-Saclay University	France
14	16	University College London	United Kingdom
15	14	University of Pennsylvania	United States
16	15	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
17	18	University of Washington	United States
18	22	Tsinghua University	China
19	17	Johns Hopkins University	United States
20	18	University of California, San Diego	United States
21	20	University of California, San Francisco	United States
22	21	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
23	24	Peking University	China
24	27	Zhejiang University	China
25	26	University of Toronto	Canada
26	25	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
27	23	Washington University in St. Louis	United States
28	31	New York University	United States
29	29	Rockefeller University	United States
30	38	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
31	33	Northwestern University	United States
32	28	The University of Tokyo	Japan
33	30	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	United States
34	33	PSL University	France
35	32	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
36	36	University of Wisconsin, Madison	United States
37	40	The University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
38	37	The University of Melbourne	Australia
39	35	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill	United States
40	42	University of Science and Technology of China	China
41	50	Fudan University	China
42	43	University of Munich	Germany
43	41	Sorbonne University	France
44	55	EPFL – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne	Switzerland
45	47	Technical University of Munich	Germany
46	39	Duke University	United States
47	45	Kyoto University	Japan
48	52	The University of Manchester	United Kingdom
49	45	The University of Texas at Austin	United States
50	43	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
51	50	Heidelberg University	Germany
52	47	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	United States
53	47	University of British Columbia	Canada
54	55	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
55	58	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
56	68	National University of Singapore	Singapore
57	55	Utrecht University	Netherlands
58	58	University of Geneva	Switzerland
59	54	University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center	United States
60	60	Université Paris Cité	France
61	53	King’s College London	United Kingdom
62	65	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
63	66	Vanderbilt University	United States
64	67	University of Zurich	Switzerland
65	72	Sun Yat-sen University	China
66	63	The University of Queensland	Australia
67	69	The University of Hong Kong	China – Hong Kong
68	61	University of Bonn	Germany
69	62	University of Southern California	United States
70	64	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
71	69	Weizmann Institute of Science	Israel
72	74	University of Sydney	Australia
73	79	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
74	69	University of Groningen	Netherlands
75	82	Nanjing University	China
76	78	KU Leuven	Belgium
77	74	McGill University	Canada
78	82	Monash University	Australia
79	76	University of California, Irvine	United States
80	77	The University of New South Wales	Australia
81	86	Seoul National University	South Korea
82	89	Wuhan University	China
83	82	Ohio State University, Columbus	United States
84	72	University of Oslo	Norway
85	80	Aarhus University	Denmark
86	86	University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center	United States
87	98	Sichuan University	China
88	90	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
89	81	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
90	90	University of Pittsburgh	United States
91	90	Ghent University	Belgium
92	95	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China
93	88	Uppsala University	Sweden
94	95	University of Basel	Switzerland
95	99	University of Helsinki	Finland
96	94	Central South University	China
97	85	Technion – Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
98	97	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
99	101–150	City University of Hong Kong	China – Hong Kong
100	101–150	Stockholm University	Sweden

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