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)

500 Institutions

World Rank	Institution	Total Score	Q1 CNCI IC TOP AWARD
1	Harvard University Harvard University	280.7	100.0
2	Michigan State University Michigan State University	263.7	77.7
3	Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University	254.0	85.4
4	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	252.7	84.2
5	The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin	245.8	75.7
6	Stanford University Stanford University	237.8	73.2
7	University of Washington University of Washington	235.6	73.0
8	Utrecht University Utrecht University	228.7	74.6
9	University of Wisconsin - Madison University of Wisconsin - Madison	226.2	73.2
10	University of Toronto University of Toronto	225.3	96.1
11	University of California, Irvine University of California, Irvine	221.9	59.8
12	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	221.6	71.8
13	University of Virginia University of Virginia	220.7	67.9
14	New York University New York University	217.5	67.6
15	University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania	214.4	68.7
16	University of Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh	212.2	64.4
17	Columbia University Columbia University	210.1	65.7
18	Maastricht University Maastricht University	207.1	84.1
19	The University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong	206.7	69.4
20	Pennsylvania State University - University Park	204.2	61.2
21	The Ohio State University - Columbus The Ohio State University - Columbus	202.4	68.8
22	Ghent University Ghent University	201.8	59.6
23	University College London University College London	200.8	76.7
24	University of Amsterdam University of Amsterdam	199.2	64.6
25	University of Groningen University of Groningen	198.3	65.9
26	University of Colorado at Boulder University of Colorado at Boulder	197.2	53.2
27	Arizona State University Arizona State University	196.9	61.0
28	University of Southern California University of Southern California	196.5	55.2
29	Northwestern University Northwestern University	196.3	57.9
30	University of Missouri - Columbia University of Missouri - Columbia	195.3	56.8

* Institutions within the same rank range are listed alphabetically.

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Methodology-Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020