Academic Ranking of World Universities

Editions

How the ranking works

ARWU uses six indicators, all drawn from third-party data rather than surveys or university submissions: alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10%), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20%), Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers (20%), papers published in Nature and Science (20%), papers indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (20%), and per capita academic performance (10%). For institutions specialized in humanities and social sciences, such as the London School of Economics, the Nature and Science indicator is dropped and its weight redistributed.

The top 100 are ranked individually; below that, institutions are shown in bands (101-150, 151-200, 201-300, and so on to 901-1000). The indicator set has stayed the same across editions shown in the publisher archive, which makes ARWU the most stable of the major global tables.

Ranked positions: Each item has a position (1, 2, 3), with ties allowed. Universities cannot apply or pay to be included. ShanghaiRanking screens more than 2,500 institutions using public data (Nobel and Fields awards, Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers, Nature and Science papers, Web of Science indexing) and publishes the top 1,000.

Read the publisher’s methodology

How far to trust it

Superscout grades every ranking on six criteria, each scored 0 to 2. Academic Ranking of World Universities scores 12 of 12, grade A.

Transparency 2/2

Indicators and weights fully published; a 2007 study questioned reproducibility.

Independence 2/2

Census of screened institutions; no applications or fees for inclusion.

Evidence 2/2

All inputs are bibliometric or award counts from third-party sources.

Stability 2/2

Same six indicators across editions; list size grew from 500 to 1,000 (2017 to 2018).

Coverage 2/2

More than 2,500 institutions screened, 1,000 published.

Track record 2/2

24 annual editions from 2003 to 2026.

History

ARWU was first published in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, originally to benchmark Chinese universities against research leaders. It is described as the first global university ranking with multiple indicators. Since 2009 it has been published and copyrighted by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, which states it is independent of universities and government agencies; an international advisory board was added in 2011.

The published list was 500 institutions (with small overflows from ties, such as 510 in 2007) until 2016, grew to 800 in 2017 and to 1,000 from 2018. Harvard has ranked first in every edition through 2026.

How it is received

ARWU is widely cited as the most transparent and stable of the big three global tables. Philip G. Altbach praised its "consistency, clarity of purpose, and transparency," and former Oxford chancellor Chris Patten said the methodology "looks fairly solid" (as cited on Wikipedia).

Critics argue it measures research prestige rather than teaching, relies heavily on awards won decades ago, and favors large, science-heavy institutions: a merger of two equal universities would raise the combined score without any change in quality. A 2007 study in Scientometrics reported that results could not be reproduced from raw data using the published method, and the European Commission and French officials have said it favors Anglo-Saxon institutions (all as summarized on Wikipedia).

Open questions

Facts not verified yet. They stay visible so they are not mistaken for settled facts.

• Exact publication days for editions 2003 to 2023 were not verified; recorded with year precision (2025 with month precision). ARWU is typically released on August 15.
• Ranks 201 to 1000 of the 2026 edition were not loaded because the public data feed was truncated when fetched.
• The 2026 source feed showed 'NTNU - Norwegian University of Science', which appears truncated.
• Whether indicator weights changed between 2003 and later editions was not verified from a primary source.