By INFOMEDIANG SOLUTIONS 
For the 11th consecutive time, the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) ranked number one in the 2027 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, published on September 30, 2026. The institution posted an overall score of 97.9 to lead the top 100.
United States-based institutions occupied the second and third positions. They are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Princeton University and Stanford University, while the fifth position is University of Cambridge, UK.
Highlights:
- The top 100 is dominated by countries from North America and Europe.
- No African country made the top 100
- Three Asian universities in top 15 for the first time
The 2027 rankings featured 2,297 institutions across 118 countries around the world. The list below includes the first 100 institutions by rank, so tied ranks are retained and the final displayed rank is 97.
| Rank | University | Country/Region | Overall Score |
| 1 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 97.9 |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States | 97.8 |
| 3 | Princeton University | United States | 97.0 |
| 3 | Stanford University | United States | 97.0 |
| 5 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 96.9 |
| 6 | Harvard University | United States | 96.7 |
| 7 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | United States | 96.5 |
| 8 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 95.2 |
| 9 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States | 94.3 |
| 9 | Yale University | United States | 94.3 |
| 11 | Tsinghua University | China | 93.9 |
| 12 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 93.6 |
| 13 | Peking University | China | 92.8 |
| 14 | University of Pennsylvania | United States | 91.5 |
| 15 | National University of Singapore (NUS) | Singapore | 91.1 |
| 16 | University of Chicago | United States | 90.7 |
| 17 | Johns Hopkins University | United States | 90.3 |
| 17 | University College London (UCL) | United Kingdom | 90.3 |
| 19 | Columbia University | United States | 90.0 |
| 20 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States | 89.9 |
| 21 | Cornell University | United States | 89.5 |
| 22 | University of Toronto | Canada | 89.1 |
| 23 | University of Michigan | United States | 87.1 |
| 24 | Carnegie Mellon University | United States | 85.9 |
| 25 | Technical University of Munich (TUM) | Germany | 85.1 |
| 26 | University of Washington | United States | 84.6 |
| 27 | The University of Tokyo | Japan | 84.3 |
| 28 | Nanyang Technological University (NTU) | Singapore | 84.0 |
| 29 | New York University (NYU) | United States | 83.5 |
| 29 | Northwestern University | United States | 83.5 |
| 29 | University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom | 83.5 |
| 32 | Duke University | United States | 83.4 |
| 33 | University of Hong Kong (HKU) | Hong Kong | 82.6 |
| 34 | The University of Melbourne | Australia | 80.9 |
| 34 | Zhejiang University | China | 80.9 |
| 36 | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) | Switzerland | 80.5 |
| 37 | University of California San Diego (UCSD) | United States | 80.3 |
| 38 | Fudan University | China | 80.2 |
| 39 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) | China | 80.0 |
| 40 | King’s College London | United Kingdom | 79.3 |
| 41 | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) | Germany | 78.7 |
| 42 | Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) | Hong Kong | 77.8 |
| 43 | McGill University | Canada | 77.7 |
| 44 | University of British Columbia (UBC) | Canada | 77.6 |
| 45 | KU Leuven | Belgium | 77.5 |
| 45 | Heidelberg University | Germany | 77.5 |
| 47 | London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) | United Kingdom | 77.3 |
| 48 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) | United States | 77.1 |
| 49 | Georgia Institute of Technology | United States | 77.0 |
| 50 | Delft University of Technology | Netherlands | 76.5 |
| 51 | The University of Sydney | Australia | 76.3 |
| 51 | University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) | China | 76.3 |
| 53 | The University of Texas at Austin | United States | 76.1 |
| 53 | University of Wisconsin–Madison | United States | 76.1 |
| 55 | Karolinska Institutet | Sweden | 75.9 |
| 56 | Seoul National University (SNU) | South Korea | 75.6 |
| 57 | Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) | France | 75.5 |
| 58 | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) | Hong Kong | 75.4 |
| 59 | Nanjing University (NJU) | China | 75.2 |
| 60 | University of Manchester | United Kingdom | 74.8 |
| 61 | Monash University | Australia | 74.7 |
| 62 | Kyoto University | Japan | 74.6 |
| 62 | University of Amsterdam (UvA) | Netherlands | 74.6 |
| 64 | Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | South Korea | 73.6 |
| 65 | University of California, Davis (UCD) | United States | 73.4 |
| 66 | Wageningen University & Research (WUR) | Netherlands | 72.9 |
| 66 | Washington University in St. Louis | United States | 72.9 |
| 68 | Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) | South Korea | 72.7 |
| 69 | Leiden University | Netherlands | 72.6 |
| 70 | City University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 72.3 |
| 71 | University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) | United States | 71.3 |
| 71 | University of Southern California (USC) | United States | 71.3 |
| 73 | Brown University | United States | 71.2 |
| 73 | The University of Queensland (UQ) | Australia | 71.2 |
| 75 | Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IPP) | France | 71.1 |
| 75 | UNSW Sydney | Australia | 71.1 |
| 77 | Australian National University (ANU) | Australia | 71.0 |
| 78 | Université Paris-Saclay | France | 70.9 |
| 79 | Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) | Hong Kong | 70.7 |
| 80 | Yonsei University | South Korea | 70.6 |
| 81 | University of Copenhagen (UCPH) | Denmark | 70.2 |
| 82 | University of Bristol | United Kingdom | 70.1 |
| 83 | University of Glasgow | United Kingdom | 69.9 |
| 84 | Purdue University West Lafayette | United States | 69.8 |
| 85 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) | United States | 69.7 |
| 86 | Boston University (BU) | United States | 69.5 |
| 87 | University of Groningen | Netherlands | 69.1 |
| 88 | University of Minnesota | United States | 68.0 |
| 89 | University of Bonn | Germany | 67.8 |
| 90 | RWTH Aachen University | Germany | 67.7 |
| 91 | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) | Germany | 67.6 |
| 92 | Vanderbilt University | United States | 67.3 |
| 93 | Michigan State University (MSU) | United States | 67.2 |
| 94 | Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin | Germany | 67.0 |
| 95 | University of Vienna | Austria | 66.9 |
| 96 | Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) | China | 66.8 |
| 97 | Aarhus University (AU) | Denmark | 66.6 |
| 97 | The Ohio State University (OSU) | United States | 66.6 |
| 97 | University of Birmingham | United Kingdom | 66.6 |
| 97 | University of California, Irvine (UCI) | United States | 66.6 |
Source: Times Higher Education (THE) World Ranking
Top 100 Country Representation
Institutions from the United States have the highest representation with 37, followed by the United Kingdom with 11 among the top 100, while China has eight. Together, the United States and the United Kingdom account for 48 of the 100 institutions.
| Position | Country/Territory | Number of Universities |
| 1 | United States | 37 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 11 |
| 3 | China | 8 |
| 4 | Germany | 7 |
| 5 | Australia | 6 |
| 6= | Hong Kong | 5 |
| 6= | Netherlands | 5 |
| 8 | South Korea | 4 |
| 9= | Canada | 3 |
| 9= | France | 3 |
| 11= | Switzerland | 2 |
| 11= | Singapore | 2 |
| 11= | Japan | 2 |
| 11= | Denmark | 2 |
| 15= | Belgium | 1 |
| 15= | Sweden | 1 |
| 15= | Austria | 1 |
Note: Hong Kong is presented separately because THE lists it separately as a country/territory in its ranking data.
THE World University Ranking is anchored on five pillars such as the learning environment (teaching); volume, income and reputation (research environment); citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence (research quality); staff, students and research (international outlook); and income & patents (industry).
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