World University Index

Time World's Top Universities (2026)

2026 edition. Published by Time / Statista.

Cited by
2 institutions
Listed here
130 institutions
Published at
https://time.com/7358185/top-universities-globally-2026/

An index earns its place here when an institution quotes it. Whether the wider world has heard of the publisher is beside the point: a table somebody has advertised a placement in is a table that counts.

In their own words

  • Brunel is ranked 9th globally for global engagement and placed within the top 250 universities worldwide overall.

    Brunel University of London , source , retrieved

  • TIME magazine named Case Western Reserve among the world's best universities, placing the institution 25th globally in its World's Top Universities of 2026 ranking.

    Case Western Reserve University , source , retrieved

Recorded placements 130

Institutions the Index records in this table. A placement here is a placement anywhere: the Index reports each institution's best, whatever its scope.

Rank Institution Claim
1 University of Oxford 1st in the world
2 Yale University 2nd in the world
3 Stanford University 3rd in the world
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4th in the world
5 University of Chicago 5th in the world
6 Harvard University 6th in the world
7 University of Cambridge 7th in the world
8 Imperial College London 8th in the world
9 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 9th in the world
10 University of Pennsylvania 10th in the world
11 Princeton University 11th in the world
12 Johns Hopkins University 12th in the world
13 California Institute of Technology 13th in the world
14 Duke University 14th in the world
15 Northwestern University 15th in the world
16 Cornell University 16th in the world
17 EPFL 17th in the world
18 University of Edinburgh 18th in the world
20 University of California, Berkeley 20th in the world
21 University of Hong Kong 21st in the world
22 University of California, Los Angeles 22nd in the world
23 University of Wisconsin-Madison 23rd in the world
24 Chinese University of Hong Kong 24th in the world
25 New York University 25th in the world
27 University of Zurich 27th in the world
28 Vanderbilt University 28th in the world
29 ETH Zurich 29th in the world
30 Rice University 30th in the world
31 University of Toronto 31st in the world
34 University of Washington 34th in the world
35 University of Manchester 35th in the world
38 University of Queensland 38th in the world
39 Technical University of Munich 39th in the world
41 University College London 41st in the world
42 University of British Columbia 42nd in the world
43 University of Minnesota 43rd in the world
44 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 44th in the world
45 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 45th in the world
47 University of Texas at Austin 47th in the world
48 University of Bristol 48th in the world
49 Ohio State University 49th in the world
50 Brown University 50th in the world
51 Carnegie Mellon University 51st in the world
52 University of Southampton 52nd in the world
53 University of Southern California 53rd in the world
54 Boston University 54th in the world
55 University of Melbourne 55th in the world
57 Tsinghua University 57th in the world
58 University of Tokyo 58th in the world
59 University of Glasgow 59th in the world
63 Columbia University 63rd in the world
64 University of Sheffield 64th in the world
65 University of California, San Diego 65th in the world
66 Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 66th in the world
67 King's College London 67th in the world
69 Kyoto University 69th in the world
71 University of Leeds 71st in the world
72 Purdue University 72nd in the world
73 University of Sydney 73rd in the world
74 Georgia Institute of Technology 74th in the world
76 University of Western Australia 76th in the world
77 University of Birmingham 77th in the world
78 Australian National University 78th in the world
79 University of New South Wales 79th in the world
80 Heidelberg University 80th in the world
81 Seoul National University 81st in the world
82 Shanghai Jiao Tong University 82nd in the world
83 Nanyang Technological University 83rd in the world
85 University of Adelaide 85th in the world
86 University of Alberta 86th in the world
87 University of Pittsburgh 87th in the world
88 National University of Singapore 88th in the world
90 University of Nottingham 90th in the world
92 London School of Economics and Political Science 92nd in the world
93 Pennsylvania State University 93rd in the world
96 Lund University 96th in the world
97 University of Warwick 97th in the world
100 University of Auckland 100th in the world
102 Monash University 102nd in the world
103 University of St Andrews 103rd in the world
104 University of Maryland, College Park 104th in the world
106 Delft University of Technology 106th in the world
110 Peking University 110th in the world
113 Trinity College Dublin 113th in the world
117 Durham University 117th in the world
118 University of California, San Francisco 118th in the world
123 Yonsei University 123rd in the world
125 Queen Mary University of London 125th in the world
126 Fudan University 126th in the world
130 City University of Hong Kong 130th in the world
131 University of Vienna 131st in the world
132 RWTH Aachen University 132nd in the world
136 Sorbonne University 136th in the world
138 University of Amsterdam 138th in the world
142 Karolinska Institute 142nd in the world
144 Osaka University 144th in the world
146 Institute of Science Tokyo 146th in the world
154 Utrecht University 154th in the world
159 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 159th in the world
167 Korea University 167th in the world
168 McGill University 168th in the world
182 University of Sao Paulo 182nd in the world
183 University of Montreal 183rd in the world
184 University of Otago 184th in the world
188 University of Science and Technology of China 188th in the world
189 PSL University 189th in the world
232 Macquarie University 232nd in the world
235 Curtin University 235th in the world
260 James Cook University 260th in the world
278 University of Newcastle 278th in the world
279 KTH Royal Institute of Technology 279th in the world
281 KU Leuven 281st in the world
284 Deakin University 284th in the world
292 Hebrew University of Jerusalem 292nd in the world
296 University of Technology Sydney 296th in the world
304 University of Wollongong 304th in the world
313 Murdoch University 313th in the world
314 Tel Aviv University 314th in the world
332 Griffith University 332nd in the world
333 RMIT University 333rd in the world
338 Queensland University of Technology 338th in the world
359 KAIST 359th in the world
360 University of Copenhagen 360th in the world
366 Zhejiang University 366th in the world
379 La Trobe University 379th in the world
400 Bond University 400th in the world
402 Western Sydney University 402nd in the world
404 Tohoku University 404th in the world
406 Swinburne University of Technology 406th in the world
512 Victoria University 512th in the world