2021 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects

ShanghaiRanking began to publish world university ranking by academic subjects in 2009. By introducing improved methodology, the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) was first published in 2017. The 2024 GRAS contains rankings of universities in 55 subjects across Natural Sciences, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. More than 1,900 out of 5,000 universities across 96 countries and regions are finally listed in the rankings. The GRAS rankings use a range of objective academic indicators and third-party data to measure the performance of world universities in respective subjects, covering in 5 major evaluation categories such as World-Class Faculty, World-Class Output, High Quality Research, Research Impact and International Collaboration. The index of international academic awards is based on Academic Excellence Survey (AES) conducted by ShanghaiRanking.(Methodology)

200 Institutions

World Rank	Institution	Total Score	Q1 CNCI IC TOP AWARD
1	University of Science and Technology Beijing	268.9	96.0
2	Central South University Central South University	239.8	100.0
3	Northeastern University (Shenyang) Northeastern University (Shenyang)	235.6	84.2
4	Northwestern Polytechnical University Northwestern Polytechnical University	231.7	87.6
5	Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai Jiao Tong University	230.8	74.7
6	University of Tennessee - Knoxville University of Tennessee - Knoxville	222.1	46.3
7	The University of Manchester The University of Manchester	211.9	44.5
8	Harbin Institute of Technology Harbin Institute of Technology	211.8	83.5
9	Tohoku University Tohoku University	207.4	59.1
10	Monash University Monash University	204.3	39.5
11	Chongqing University Chongqing University	203.1	66.0
12	Pohang University of Science and Technology	198.7	50.5
13	The Ohio State University - Columbus The Ohio State University - Columbus	197.5	42.5
14	Tsinghua University Tsinghua University	195.1	62.8
14	Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an Jiaotong University	195.1	60.2
16	University of Oxford University of Oxford	192.2	35.5
17	Northwestern University Northwestern University	190.5	37.9
18	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	190.1	29.8
19	University of Chicago University of Chicago	189.8	38.2
20	University of Leoben University of Leoben	189.0	45.5
21	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	188.3	54.6
22	Shanghai University Shanghai University	188.2	56.3
23	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)	186.6	41.5
24	The University of Queensland The University of Queensland	185.5	35.1
25	University of Science and Technology of China	184.4	57.2
26	City University of Hong Kong City University of Hong Kong	183.4	40.1
27	Nanjing University of Science and Technology	181.4	42.7
27	University of Cambridge University of Cambridge	181.4	36.9
29	Beihang University Beihang University	181.1	58.5
30	Université Grenoble Alpes Université Grenoble Alpes	180.2	44.0

* Institutions within the same rank range are listed alphabetically.

Methodology-Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020