QS World University Rankings 2026: Top Global Universities

QS World University Rankings is an authoritative ranking of the world’s best universities, compiled by the British consulting company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The ranking is updated annually and serves as a guide for students choosing a university — both in their home country and abroad.

Ranking Criteria

The evaluation of universities is based on several factors, each with its own weight:

1. Academic Reputation — 30% 

2. Citations per Faculty — 20%

3. Employer Reputation —15% 

4. Faculty Student Ratio — 10% 

5. International Student Ratio — 5% 

6. International Faculty Ratio — 5% 

7. Employment Outcomes — 5% 

8. International Research Network — 5% 

9. Sustainability — 5% (the institution's attention to environmental and social issues)

Results of the 2026 Ranking

Massachusetts Institute of Technology once again takes first place — the university has led the ranking for 14 consecutive years. It is followed by Imperial College London (2nd) and Stanford University (3rd).

The United States and the United Kingdom maintain leading positions in terms of the number of universities included in the ranking — 192 and 90 respectively. In total, the new ranking includes 1,500 institutions from 106 countries.

The top 100 universities in the world in 2026 include:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — USA

2. Imperial College London — UK

3. Stanford University — USA

4. University of Oxford — UK

5. Harvard University — USA

6. University of Cambridge — UK

7. ETH Zurich — Switzerland

8. National University of Singapore (NUS) — Singapore

9. UCL — UK

10. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) — USA

11. The University of Hong Kong — Hong Kong (China)

12. Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) — Singapore

13. University of Chicago — USA

14. Peking University — China

15. University of Pennsylvania — USA

16. Cornell University — USA

17. Tsinghua University — China

18. University of California, Berkeley (UCB) — USA

19. The University of Melbourne — Australia

20. The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) — Australia

21. Yale University — USA

22. EPFL – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne — Switzerland

23. Technical University of Munich — Germany

24. Johns Hopkins University — USA

25. Princeton University — USA

26. The University of Sydney — Australia

27. McGill University — Canada

28. Université PSL — France

29. University of Toronto — Canada

30. Fudan University — China

31. King’s College London — UK

32. Australian National University (ANU) — Australia

33. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) — Hong Kong (China)

34. The University of Edinburgh — UK

35. The University of Manchester — UK

36. Monash University — Australia

37. The University of Tokyo — Japan

38. Columbia University — USA

39. Seoul National University — South Korea

40. University of British Columbia — Canada

41. Institut Polytechnique de Paris — France

42. Northwestern University — USA

43. The University of Queensland — Australia

44. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) — Hong Kong (China)

45. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor — USA

46. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) — USA

47. Delft University of Technology — Netherlands

48. Shanghai Jiao Tong University — China

49. Zhejiang University — China

50. Yonsei University — South Korea

51. University of Bristol — UK

52. Carnegie Mellon University — USA

53. University of Amsterdam — Netherlands

54. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University — Hong Kong (China)

55. New York University (NYU) — USA

56. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) — UK

57. Kyoto University — Japan

58. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Germany

59. Universiti Malaya (UM) — Malaysia

60. KU Leuven — Belgium

61. Korea University — South Korea

62. Duke University — USA

63. City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) — Hong Kong (China)

64. National Taiwan University (NTU) — Taiwan

65. The University of Auckland — New Zealand

66. University of California, San Diego (UCSD) — USA

67. KFUPM — Saudi Arabia

68. University of Texas at Austin — USA

69. Brown University — USA

70. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — USA

71. Université Paris-Saclay — France

72. Lund University — Sweden

73. Sorbonne University — France

74. The University of Warwick — UK

75. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin — Ireland

76. University of Birmingham — UK

77. The University of Western Australia — Australia

78. KTH Royal Institute of Technology — Sweden

79. University of Glasgow — UK

80. Universität Heidelberg — Germany

81. University of Washington — USA

82. University of Adelaide — Australia

83. Pennsylvania State University — USA

84. Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) — Argentina

85. Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) — Japan

86. University of Leeds — UK

87. University of Southampton — UK

88. Boston University — USA

89. Freie Universität Berlin — Germany

90. Purdue University — USA

91. Osaka University — Japan

92. The University of Sheffield — UK

93. Uppsala University — Sweden

94. Durham University — UK

95. University of Alberta — Canada

96. University of Technology Sydney — Australia

97. University of Nottingham — UK

98. KIT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology — Germany

99. Politecnico di Milano — Italy

100. University of Zurich — Switzerland