ARWU Ranking 2025: Harvard remains No. 1, China rises, Indian universities remain absent from the Top 500

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2025 – better known as the Shanghai Ranking – has once again delivered sobering news for the Indian higher education sector. For the past year, no Indian university has appeared in the top 500, underscoring the country’s continued struggle in research-driven global rankings.

The ARWU is widely considered one of the most demanding international university rankings, placing overwhelming importance on research achievements, Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, highly cited researchers and publications in top scientific journals. Unlike rankings based on perception or reputation, the ARWU leaves little room for improvement without sustained, high-impact research.

This result stands in stark contrast to other global rankings such as the QS World University Rankings or the Times Higher Education (THE), where Indian institutions – particularly the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) – often show incremental progress.

A stronger Chinese push

At the very top, the ARWU 2025 results show remarkable stability.

• Harvard University has retained the world’s top spot for the 23rd consecutive year, thanks to its unparalleled research output and Nobel Prize-winning professors.
• Other perennial leaders such as Stanford University, MIT, and the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the United Kingdom continue to dominate the upper echelons.

However, one of the most striking trends this year is the continued rise of Chinese universities.

Institutions like Tsinghua University and Peking University have firmly established themselves among the top 20, supported by a growing number of highly cited researchers and an increase in the number of influential scientific publications.

According to ARWU data:

• The United States has 111 top 500 universities.
• China follows closely with 101 institutions
• Even smaller or developing countries, including Iran, are represented
• India, despite its size and talent pool, does not have any

QS Asia rankings tell a different story

India’s performance also showed weakness in the QS Asia University Rankings 2026, although the country continues to appear more prominently there than in the ARWU.

Leading Indian institutions such as IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and IISc Bengaluru all slipped in the latest edition.

• IIT Delhi, the highest-ranked Indian institution in QS Asia, fell 15 places to 59th.
• The seven older IITs – Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Roorkee and Guwahati – made it to the top 150, but each declined from last year.

However, modest gains have been seen for some newer IITs:

• IIT BHU Varanasi rose to No. 237
• IIT Hyderabad reached 270th place
• IIT Gandhinagar upgraded to No. 300

Why ARWU remains India’s biggest challenge

Experts point out that ARWU’s methodology exposes India’s structural weaknesses in the areas of long-term and high-impact research funding, international research collaboration, global faculty recognition, and cutting-edge science linked to top journals and citations.

While India produces large numbers of graduates and engineers, global research visibility and excellence remains limited, especially when compared to the standards set by American and Chinese universities.