TL;DR

162 universities have been in the ARWU top 100 across the 24 editions from 2003 to 2026. 58 of them are in all 24; the other 104 rotate through the remaining places.
The United States had 58 universities in 2003 and 37 in 2026. Mainland China had none before 2016 and 16 in 2026.
Entries per edition: 3.45 from 2004 to 2014 (11 editions), 4.92 from 2015 to 2026 (12 editions). 6 of the later 59 entries are mergers or renames; without them it is 4.42.
Three tables of my own counts, CC BY 4.0. The ranking lists themselves are published by ShanghaiRanking, one per edition.

Download

arwu_top100_dynamics_universities_2026-10.csv. 162 rows, one per university, 16 columns.

arwu_top100_dynamics_country_year_2026-10.csv. 552 rows, 23 countries and regions × 24 editions, 10 columns.

arwu_top100_dynamics_exits_2026-10.csv. 98 rows, one per exit, 4 columns.

Entries and exits, edition by edition

Edition	Universities	Entries	First appearances	Returns	Exits
2004	100	9	9	0	10
2005	100	3	2	1	3
2006	101	3	1	2	2
2007	101	1	0	1	1
2008	100	3	2	1	4
2009	100	2	0	2	2
2010	100	1	0	1	1
2011	101	3	3	0	2
2012	100	4	3	1	5
2013	100	2	0	2	2
2014	100	7	5	2	7
2015	100	3	1	2	3
2016	100	9	6	3	9
2017	100	5	2	3	5
2018	100	5	3	2	5
2019	100	4	2	2	4
2020	100	7	6	1	7
2021	100	3	1	2	3
2022	100	8	5	3	8
2023	100	3	2	1	3
2024	100	6	4	2	6
2025	100	2	1	1	2
2026	100	4	3	1	4

Table 1. An entry is a university in the edition that was missing from the previous one: a first appearance or a return. In 2003, 2006, 2007, 2011 a tie at place 100 puts 101 universities in the list.

Two periods

Period	Editions	Entries	Per edition	First appearances	Returns	Mergers and renames
2004 to 2014	11	38	3.45	25	13	0
2015 to 2026	12	59	4.92	36	23	6

Table 2. The periods have 11 and 12 editions, so they are compared per edition. 2003 has no previous edition and opens neither period.

How long universities stay

Editions in the top 100	Universities
24	58
20 to 23	10
10 to 19	39
5 to 9	23
2 to 4	19
1	13

Table 3. 162 universities by the number of editions, out of 24, in which they are in the top 100.

Mergers and renames

University	Event	First edition	Rank then
Sorbonne University	merger 2018	2018	36
Paris-Saclay University	merger 2020	2020	14
PSL University	merger 2019	2020	36
University of Paris	merger 2019	2020	65
Université Grenoble Alpes	merger 2020	2020	99
Université Paris Cité	rename 2022	2022	78

Table 4. A merger or a rename gets a new id, so it counts as one exit and one entry. Each event was checked on the university's own page.

Codebook

arwu_top100_dynamics_universities_2026-10.csv

Column	What it holds
`university_id`	Stable slug of the university. A merger or a rename gets a new id.
`name_latest`	Name as ARWU printed it in the last edition with the university in the top 100.
`country_code`	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2. Mainland China is CN and Hong Kong is HK.
`country_arwu`	Country or region as printed by ARWU.
`first_edition`	First edition in the top 100 (from 2003).
`last_edition`	Last edition in the top 100 (up to 2026).
`editions_in_top100`	Editions out of 24 in the top 100.
`best_rank`	Best world rank across those editions.
`best_rank_first_year`	First edition with that best rank.
`first_rank`	World rank in the first edition.
`worst_rank`	Lowest world rank while in the top 100.
`rank_2003`	World rank in 2003; empty if not in the top 100.
`rank_2026`	World rank in 2026; empty if not in the top 100.
`exits`	Times the university left the top 100.
`re_entries`	Times it came back after at least one edition out.
`lineage`	Merger or rename that created this id, with the year; empty otherwise.

arwu_top100_dynamics_country_year_2026-10.csv

Column	What it holds
`year`	Edition.
`country_code`	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.
`country_arwu`	Country or region as printed by ARWU.
`n_top100`	Universities of the country in the top 100 of the edition. Zero is a count.
`n_top10`	Of them, in places 1 to 10.
`n_top50`	Of them, in places 1 to 50.
`best_rank`	Best world rank of the country; empty if none.
`best_university_id`	University at that rank; two ids with a semicolon on a tied place.
`n_entries`	Universities of the country that entered in this edition (first appearance or return); empty for 2003.
`n_exits`	Universities of the country that were in the previous edition and are missing from this one; empty for 2003.

arwu_top100_dynamics_exits_2026-10.csv

Column	What it holds
`year_exit`	First edition in which the university is missing after being in the previous one.
`university_id`	University id.
`last_rank`	World rank in the last edition before the exit.
`next_status`	returned_YEAR: the first later edition with the university back; not_returned: not back up to 2026.

Method and limitations

Source. The list ShanghaiRanking publishes for each edition, read from its public API: editions 2003 to 2025 on 22 Oct 2026, edition 2026 on 24 Oct 2026. Places 1 to 100 of each edition, as published. Every number in the three tables is counted from those lists.
Ids. Spelling variants of one university share an id. A merger or a rename gets a new id: Sorbonne University (merger 2018); PSL University (merger 2019); Paris-Saclay University (merger 2020); University of Paris (merger 2019); Université Grenoble Alpes (merger 2020); Université Paris Cité (rename 2022).
Left edge. 2003 is the first edition. A first appearance after 2003 may be a return for a university that was in the list before 2003.
Only the top 100. A university missing from an edition may be just below place 100.
Reuse. The ranking is published by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. These counts may be reused with attribution (CC BY 4.0).

Where these numbers are used

The Top 100 Is a Moving Target (Article 6) The article that reads these tables, with the interactive chart.

ARWU Top 100 by Country – dataset Universities per country and the best-ranked university of each, 2003 to 2026.

Cite this
Atamanova, M. (2026). ARWU Top 100 Dynamics, 2003–2026 [Data set]. mariascales.com. https://mariascales.com/research/long-bet/data/arwu-top100-dynamics/