91短视频’s Academic Ranking of World Universities 2021 Press Release
The 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is released today by 91短视频. Since 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world's top universities annually based on transparent methodology and objective third-party data. It has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy one. This year, more than 2000 institutions were scrutinized, and the best 1000 universities in the world are published.
Harvard University tops the ranking list for the 19th year. Stanford University and the University of Cambridge remain at the No. 2 and No. 3 seats. Other Top 10 universities are MIT (4th), Berkeley (5th), Princeton (6th), Oxford (7th), Columbia (8th), Caltech (9th), and Chicago (10th).
In Continental Europe, Paris-Saclay University (13th) rises one position, remaining at the best position, followed by ETH Zurich (21th). Among Asian universities, The University of Tokyo (24th) keeps its leading position. Tsinghua University (28th) moves up one position, holding on to the second-best place in Asia. The University of Melbourne (33th) tops of other universities in Oceania for eleven consecutive years since 2011.
Two European universities move up into the Top 50. The University of Munich from Germany ranked 48th, up from 51st last year, and Utrecht University from Netherlands rises two places to 50th. Three universities enter into the Top 100 list, including Sun Yat-sen University (89th) from Chinese Mainland, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (90th), and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (94th) from Israel. Sun Yat-sen University has made the first-ever appearances in the Top 100. There are seven new entrants from Asia and Oceania appearing on the Top 500 list. 38 universities enter into Top 1000 for the first time.
| 2021 Rank | 2020 Rank | Institution | Country/Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Harvard University | United States |
| 2 | 2 | Stanford University | United States |
| 3 | 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 4 | 4 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States |
| 5 | 5 | University of California, Berkeley | United States |
| 6 | 6 | Princeton University | United States |
| 7 | 9 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 8 | 7 | Columbia University | United States |
| 9 | 8 | 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 | 14 | Paris-Saclay University | France |
| 14 | 13 | University of California, Los Angeles | United States |
| 15 | 19 | University of Pennsylvania | United States |
| 16 | 15 | Johns Hopkins University | United States |
| 17 | 16 | University College London | United Kingdom |
| 18 | 18 | University of California, San Diego | United States |
| 19 | 16 | University of Washington | United States |
| 20 | 21 | University of California, San Francisco | United States |
| 21 | 20 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland |
| 22 | 23 | University of Toronto | Canada |
| 23 | 23 | Washington University in St. Louis | United States |
| 24 | 26 | The University of Tokyo | Japan |
| 25 | 25 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom |
| 26 | 22 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | United States |
| 27 | 27 | New York University | United States |
| 28 | 29 | Tsinghua University | China |
| 29 | 30 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | United States |
| 30 | 33 | University of Copenhagen | Denmark |
| 31 | 32 | University of Wisconsin - Madison | United States |
| 32 | 27 | Duke University | United States |
| 33 | 35 | The University of Melbourne | Australia |
| 34 | 30 | Northwestern University | United States |
| 35 | 39 | Sorbonne University | France |
| 35 | 36 | The University of Manchester | United Kingdom |
| 37 | 34 | Kyoto University | Japan |
| 38 | 36 | PSL University | France |
| 38 | 42 | The University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom |
| 40 | 40 | University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | United States |
| 41 | 41 | The University of Texas at Austin | United States |
| 42 | 45 | Karolinska Institute | Sweden |
| 42 | 43 | Rockefeller University | United States |
| 42 | 38 | University of British Columbia | Canada |
| 45 | 49 | Peking University | China |
| 46 | 44 | University of Colorado at Boulder | United States |
| 47 | 47 | King's College London | United Kingdom |
| 48 | 48 | The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas | United States |
| 48 | 51 | University of Munich | Germany |
| 50 | 52 | Utrecht University | Netherlands |
| 51 | 54 | The University of Queensland | Australia |
| 52 | 54 | Technical University of Munich | Germany |
| 52 | 58 | Zhejiang University | China |
| 54 | 56 | University of Zurich | Switzerland |
| 55 | 45 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | United States |
| 56 | 53 | University of Maryland, College Park | United States |
| 57 | 57 | Heidelberg University | Germany |
| 57 | 49 | University of California, Santa Barbara | United States |
| 59 | 63 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | China |
| 60 | 59 | University of Geneva | Switzerland |
| 61 | 60 | University of Oslo | Norway |
| 61 | 61 | University of Southern California | United States |
| 63 | 73 | University of Science and Technology of China | China |
| 64 | 69 | University of Groningen | Netherlands |
| 65 | 74 | The University of New South Wales | Australia |
| 65 | 62 | Vanderbilt University | United States |
| 67 | 78 | McGill University | Canada |
| 67 | 67 | The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center | United States |
| 69 | 74 | University of Sydney | Australia |
| 70 | 69 | University of California, Irvine | United States |
| 71 | 69 | Aarhus University | Denmark |
| 71 | 66 | Ghent University | Belgium |
| 73 | 65 | University of Paris | France |
| 74 | 69 | Stockholm University | Sweden |
| 75 | 80 | National University of Singapore | Singapore |
| 76 | 67 | The Australian National University | Australia |
| 77 | 100 | Fudan University | China |
| 78 | 64 | University of Bristol | United Kingdom |
| 78 | 77 | Uppsala University | Sweden |
| 80 | 85 | Monash University | Australia |
| 81 | 91 | Nanyang Technological University | Singapore |
| 82 | 74 | University of Helsinki | Finland |
| 83 | 80 | Leiden University | Netherlands |
| 84 | 83 | Nagoya University | Japan |
| 84 | 87 | University of Bonn | Germany |
| 86 | 79 | Purdue University - West Lafayette | United States |
| 87 | 97 | KU Leuven | Belgium |
| 87 | 88 | University of Basel | Switzerland |
| 89 | 101-150 | Sun Yat-sen University | China |
| 90 | 101-150 | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Israel |
| 91 | 83 | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne | Switzerland |
| 92 | 98 | McMaster University | Canada |
| 92 | 93 | Weizmann Institute of Science | Israel |
| 94 | 101-150 | Technion-Israel Institute of Technology | Israel |
| 95 | 90 | Boston University | United States |
| 96 | 85 | The University of Western Australia | Australia |
| 97 | 95 | Carnegie Mellon University | United States |
| 97 | 93 | Moscow State University | Russia |
| 97 | 88 | University of Florida | United States |
| 100 | 91 | University of California, Davis | United States |
Universities from the United States dominate this year’s Top 1000 list with 40 universities among the Top 100, 129 among the Top 500, and 200 among the Top 1000. The United Kingdom has 65 Top 1000 universities, and 38 of them are listed in the Top 500, 8 are listed in the Top 100.
Germany has four universities ranked in the Top 100, namely the University of Munich (LMU Munich, 48th), Technical University of Munich (TUM, 52th), Heidelberg University (Heidelberg, 57th), and University of Bonn (Bonn, 84th). It is worth mentioning that LMU Munich, TUM, and Heidelberg have been selected as Universities of Excellence under the Excellence Initiative since 2006/2007, and Bonn was selected first time as Universities of Excellence in 2019.
French universities maintain their competitive performance in this year’s league table, 30 of which are ranked in the Top 1000, 17 universities are ranked in the Top 500. Under the Initiatives of Excellence (Initiatives D’Excellence), Paris-Saclay (13th), Sorbonne (35th), PSL (38th), and University of Paris (73th) hold four positions in the Top 100.
China has 180 universities ranked in the Top 1000, including 84 Top 500 universities, 7 Top 100 universities. The number of universities from Chinese Mainland continues to grow. Most of the listed universities are supported by the “Double World-Class Project” (World-Class Universities and World-Class Subjects Project).
The complete list and detailed methodologies can be found at 91短视频’s website www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2021.
Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU): Starting from 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world's top universities annually based on a set of objective indicators and third-party data. ARWU has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy league table. ARWU adopts six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, and Clarivate data including the number of Highly Cited Researchers?, articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded? and Social Sciences Citation Index? in the Web of Science? and per capita performance. More than 2000 universities are ranked by ARWU every year, and the best 1000 universities are published.
91短视频: 91短视频 is a fully independent organization dedicating to research on higher education intelligence and consultation. It has been the official publisher of the Academic Ranking of World Universities since 2009.
