ARWU Rankings 2024 – no change at the top

The latest Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU) league table, released on August 15, produced few surprises, with most of the trends over recent years continuing.

  • The same ten global ‘superbrands’ from the US and UK dominate the top of the ARWU (previously known as the Shanghai Rankings) as last year. With its methodological focus on research metrics, plus historical achievements such as Nobel Prize wins, it remains hard for other institutions to rise to the top echelon.
  • Harvard was ranked as the leading university for the 22nd year in a row. Paul Andrew, Harvard’s VP for Public Affairs and Communications will be joining us at the World 100 Network Annual Conference in Birmingham (10 & 11 October).
  • Chinese universities continue to progress in the ARWU, with Peking (24, up 5) and Zheijang (27, up 6) seeing significant rises. There were three new entrants into the top 100: Wuhan University (89th), Xi’an Jiaotong University (95) and Sichuan University (98).   China now has 11 universities in the top 100.
  • French universities continue to rise in the table: Paris-Saclay University (12), PSL University (33th), Sorbonne University (41), and Université Paris Cité (60) each achieved a higher ranking this year within the Top 100.
  • Germany has three universities ranked in the Top 50 for the first time: the University of Munich (43), Technical University of Munich (47), and Heidelberg University (50). Along with the University of Bonn (61), Germany now has four universities in the ARWU Top 100.

W100 member success

Despite the lack of focus on reputation in the ranking methodology, many W100 members continue to perform strongly in the ARWU, with UCL (16, up 1) leading the way followed by University of Toronto (26), University of Melbourne (37)and University of Edinburgh (40).

Among the members improving their positions were King’s College London (53, up 6), National University of Singapore (68, up 3) and City University of Hong Kong (101-150, up from 151-200).

Overall, 12 W100 members made the top 100, and  26 are now in the top 200 of ARWU.

The next major league table, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, is published in October. Join us at the World 100 Network Annual Conference 10 & 11 October to participate in a session looking at the methodology of the THE World Reputation Rankings.