TL;DR
- 162 universities have been in the ARWU top 100 across 24 editions. 58 of them were there in all 24.
- The United States: 58 of 101 in 2003, 37 of 100 in 2026. In places 1 to 20 it held 15 and holds 14. The loss is in places 21 to 100: 43 then, 23 now.
- Mainland China: none through 2015, 16 of 100 in 2026. Between 2003 and 2026 no European country gained or lost more than two universities.
- Turnover grew: 3.45 entries per edition from 2004 to 2014, 4.92 from 2015 to 2026. For a shortlist I read a university's line across editions before its place in one.
How I counted
- 24 editions of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 2003 to 2026, places 1 to 100, read from ShanghaiRanking's published lists.
- In 2003, 2006, 2007, 2011 a tie at the bottom puts 101 universities into the top 100. There the denominator is 101.
- A merger or a rename is a new university in my count.
- An entry is a university that is in this edition and was not in the previous one: a first appearance or a return.
- Mainland China and Hong Kong are counted apart, as ARWU lists them.
24 editions in one chart
- The first tab shows how high a country's best university stands.
- The second tab shows how many universities a country has in the top 100.
- A country can move on one tab and stay flat on the other.
- The chart opens with the countries this article talks about. Click any other country to switch its line on.
Chart: ARWU Country Dynamics, 2003 to 2026, on its own page.
Show the data: universities per country, 2003, 2016 and 2026
| Country or region | 2003 | 2016 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 58 | 50 | 37 |
| Mainland China | 0 | 2 | 16 |
| United Kingdom | 9 | 8 | 8 |
| Switzerland | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Australia | 2 | 6 | 5 |
| Germany | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| France | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Canada | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Japan | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| Netherlands | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Sweden | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Belgium | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Denmark | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Israel | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Hong Kong | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Singapore | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Norway | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| South Korea | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Austria | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Finland | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Italy | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Russia | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All | 101 | 100 | 100 |
Table 1. Universities in the top 100 by country or region, 2003, 2016 and 2026. Countries with none in all three editions are left out; the full grid is in the dataset.
Harvard never moved. The US lost 21 places.
Harvard has held place 1 in all 24 editions. Over those 24 editions the United States went from 58 of 101 universities in the top 100 to 37 of 100.
The top 20 barely moved. The reshuffle is in places 21 to 100: the US lost 20 there, mainland China gained 15.
| Country or region | Places 1 to 20 | 21 to 50 | 51 to 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 15 → 14 | 20 → 13 | 23 → 10 |
| Mainland China | 0 → 1 | 0 → 5 | 0 → 10 |
| United Kingdom | 4 → 3 | 1 → 2 | 4 → 3 |
| All other countries | 1 → 2 | 9 → 10 | 24 → 27 |
| All | 20 → 20 | 30 → 30 | 51 → 50 |
Table 2. Universities by band of places, 2003 → 2026. In 2003 a tie at place 100 puts 51 universities in the last band.
What the lines show
- United States: 58 of 101 → 37 of 100. 18 of the 21 lost places went after 2009, when the US still had 55.
- Mainland China: none through 2015, 16 of 100 in 2026. Tsinghua 58 → 18 in eleven editions. Three Chinese universities entered in 2026 alone: Southeast, Harbin Institute of Technology and Tianjin.
- East Asia beyond mainland China: Singapore from 2016, Hong Kong and Korea from 2022, 5 universities together in 2026. With mainland China it is 0 → 21 since 2015. Japan went the other way: 5 → 2, Tokyo 19 → 30.
- France: 2 → 4, best place 65 → 13. Most of it is mergers: Paris-Saclay entered at 14 in 2020. The practical rule: a jump of 20 places or more in one edition is a merger or a rename until I have checked it is not.
- Germany: 5 → 4, best place 48 → 45. No movement in 24 editions.
- United Kingdom: 9 → 8. Cambridge between places 2 and 5 in every edition.
- Israel: 1 → 2, with 3 in 2012 to 2013 and 2021 to 2025. Technion left in 2026. Best place 94 → 71 (Weizmann).
- Australia: 2 → 5, peak 7 in 2019 to 2022. Melbourne 92 → 37.
- Turkey: no university in the top 100 in 24 editions. Best place ever: Istanbul University in the 301 to 400 band (2011). In ARWU 2026, 14 Turkish universities are in the top 1,000, the best three in the 601 to 700 band.
- Left the list: Austria after 2005, Italy after 2006, Russia after 2021, Finland in 2026.
Zoom out
- 162 universities have been in the top 100 over 24 editions.
- 58 of them were there in every edition.
- The other places rotate, and faster than before: 3.45 entries per edition from 2004 to 2014, 4.92 from 2015 to 2026.
| 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 3. Entries into the top 100 by period. The periods have 11 and 12 editions, so they are compared per edition.
Two objections to that number, and what is left after them:
- The obvious objection: ARWU counts Nobel prizes, Fields medals, highly cited researchers and papers in Nature and Science, and these change slowly. True, and that is why 4.92 entries per edition is a number to take seriously: close to 5 of 100 places change in a list built to move slowly.
- The second objection is mine: part of the turnover is administrative. A merger or a rename enters the list as a new university. 6 of the 59 entries from 2015 to 2026 are French: five mergers (Sorbonne University in 2018; Paris-Saclay, PSL, Université de Paris and Grenoble Alpes in 2020) and one rename (Université Paris Cité in 2022). From 2004 to 2014 there were none.
- What is left: without these 6, it is 4.42 entries per edition against 3.45. The turnover still grew.
Largest moves, 2003 to 2026
Among the 64 universities in the top 100 in both 2003 and 2026:
| University | 2003 | 2026 | Places |
|---|---|---|---|
| The University of Melbourne | 92 | 37 | +55 |
| The University of Manchester | 89 | 51 | +38 |
| University of Copenhagen | 65 | 34 | +31 |
| University of Bristol | 55 | 91 | −36 |
| Uppsala University | 59 | 94 | −35 |
| University of California, Santa Barbara | 26 | 61 | −35 |
Table 4. The three largest rises and the three largest falls, 2003 to 2026, among the 64 universities in both editions.
Before a university goes on the shortlist
- A student who starts a bachelor in 2028 applies with the 2027 edition and graduates around 2031.
- In a comparable stretch, 2016 to 2020, mainland China went from 2 universities to 6 and the US from 50 to 41.
- The practical rule: I open a university's line in the chart before it goes on the list. 58 universities have been in the top 100 in every edition; the other 104 have been there some of the time.
Data
- Interactive chart: both tabs, every country, every edition.
- Dataset: ARWU Top 100 Dynamics, 2003 to 2026. Three tables of my own counts: one row per university, countries by edition, exits. CSV, CC BY 4.0. The ranking lists themselves are at shanghairanking.com, one per edition.
- Country counts and best-ranked universities per country: ARWU Top 100 by Country, 2003 to 2026.
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How I Built It
Why ARWU over QS and THE, why 100 universities, and what 1,258 normalised pairs made possible.
What the World Actually Offers
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The Unfashionable Four
Four A-level subjects. Mathematics named by 22 of the 23 UK-taught programmes; Chemistry as the fourth opens all 23.
The Floor Keeps Rising
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