On Tuesday, June 17, U.S. News will unveil its 2025-2026 Best Global Universities rankings. These rankings focus on academic research and global reputation, offering students the opportunity to see how universities compare not just in their country, but globally and regionally, across a range of subjects.
Key Highlights of the 2025-2026 Rankings
The overall Best Global Universities ranking will continue to feature 2,250 top universities from more than 100 countries, maintaining a similar number to last year’s edition. This gives students a broad view of how institutions around the world stack up against one another.
Regional Rankings:
U.S. News will release five regional rankings this year, showcasing the top universities in:
- Africa
- Asia
- Australia/New Zealand
- Europe
- Latin America
Country-Specific Rankings:
The rankings will also highlight specific countries, with U.S. News publishing over 45 country-specific rankings. Some of the countries with a large number of ranked schools include:
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Japan
- Netherlands
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
Subject Rankings
Alongside the overall university rankings, U.S. News will publish rankings for 51 subjects, including clinical medicine, computer science, and engineering. These rankings focus on academic research performance in each subject across universities, not specific departments or schools.
Of the 51 subject rankings, eight subjects will have a larger number of schools ranked this year. These include:
- Agricultural Sciences (500 ranked)
- Artificial Intelligence (250 ranked)
- Clinical Medicine (1,000 ranked)
- Computer Science (1,000 ranked)
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering (750 ranked)
- Engineering (1,500 ranked)
- Gastroenterology and Hepatology (250 ranked)
- Plant and Animal Science (750 ranked)
The full list of subject rankings includes a wide array of fields, ranging from the natural sciences (e.g., Chemistry, Physics, Biology) to engineering, medicine, and social sciences.
Methodology Behind the Rankings
U.S. News uses a specific methodology to compile these rankings, primarily focusing on academic research performance.
The overall rankings take into account a university’s global and regional reputation and its academic research output, measured using bibliometric indicators like citations and publications.
For the subject-specific rankings, U.S. News uses a separate methodology that evaluates the research performance in each field, assessing factors such as publications, citations, and global and regional reputation in that particular subject.
This gives students insights into which universities lead in specific academic disciplines worldwide.
The 2025-2026 Best Global Universities rankings by U.S. News will provide students with an extensive resource for comparing top institutions globally and regionally.
These rankings are particularly valuable for students looking to assess universities based on research excellence and academic reputation, whether they’re considering pursuing a general degree or a specific field of study.
