Experts Club analytical center analyzed the latest ranking of the world's top universities Academic Ranking of World Universities 2026 (ARWU), known as the Shanghai Ranking. Mainland China became the largest university system in terms of the number of universities represented in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2026 (ARWU), known as the Shanghai Ranking. The top 1000 includes 234 universities from mainland China against 187 universities from the USA.
At the same time, the USA is still much more strongly represented directly at the top of the ranking.
Full list of countries and territories by the number of universities in ARWU 2026 (in descending order by the number of universities):
Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are counted separately here, according to ShanghaiRanking's territorial division.
The ranking structure shows the further strengthening of Asia. In addition to mainland China, South Korea with 29 universities and Japan with 26 are among the largest systems represented. Taiwan with 12 universities, Hong Kong with eight and Macau with two are separately represented.
ARWU evaluates more than 2.5 thousand universities in the world, but publishes only the first thousand. Unlike a number of other global rankings, it is focused mainly on scientific and research performance, and not on student feedback, reputation among employers, or quality of student life.
The final indicator consists of six criteria: graduates — winners of the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal give 10% of the score; such laureates among employees — 20%; Clarivate's most cited researchers — 20%; publications in Nature and Science — 20%; articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index — another 20%; scientific productivity based on the number of academic staff is 10%.
For ARWU 2026, the list of Highly Cited Researchers released in December 2025, publications in Nature and Science for 2021-2025, as well as articles indexed in Web of Science in 2025 were used year.
Therefore, it is more correct to consider the Shanghai rating primarily as an indicator of the research capacity of universities and national scientific systems, and not as a direct assessment of the quality of education or study conditions for students.
Not a single Ukrainian university was included in the thousand best universities in the world according to this rating.
