There are several certainties in the higher education space when considering global rankings. One is that each time they are released, endless discussions on their meaning, usefulness, and relevance ensue.
In recent days, discussion has centred on the release of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which occurs every 15 August, regardless of the day of the week.
Another certainty is that there is not much that changes year-on-year with ARWU, other than the volatility experienced when Clarivate started to produce annual updates to its Highly Cited Researchers List.
The primary objective of the ARWU was to assess the global standing of leading Chinese universities and benchmark their research performance against that of world-class international institutions.
However, in yet another certainty for rankings, the criteria focus on a relatively narrow set of measures. This is a ranking that recognises the elite and prestige derived from research endeavours, rather than mass education.
Therefore, this is not a ranking designed to attract students or for institutions to highlight their quality of educational delivery, student experience, or graduate outcomes.
In the 2026 edition, only 117 of the 1,000 ranked institutions received a score across every indicator (compared to 115 last year). These institutions are drawn from 19 different countries, of which 46 are from the United States and 14 are from the United Kingdom. The remaining institutions were mainly drawn from Europe, Japan, and Australia, but none from China.
Participation
The ARWU was first published in 2003 ranking the world’s top 500 institutions, of which nine were from China and its highest institution ranked in the 201-250 band. The ranking included 161 institutions from the United States, of which 58 were listed in the top 100. Australia had 13 institutions listed, of which two ranked in the top 100 (ANU at 49th and Melbourne at 92nd).
Over the years, all ranking schemes have expanded considerably in response to growing demand for inclusion. Since 2019, ARWU has published rankings for 1,000 institutions. Prior to this, ARWU published a list of candidate institutions (i.e. outside the top 500) for several years.
Since 2023, China has surpassed the United States in the number of institutions included in the ranking. China had 234 institutions listed in 2026 of which 16 ranked in the top 100 and another 99 between 101 and 500, while the United States had 187 institutions listed in 2026, of which 37 ranked in the top 100 and another 74 between 101 and 500.
For its part, Australia had 33 institutions listed in the 2019 edition and has had 29 listed for the past two years. Adelaide University is listed following the merger of The University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia.
Let us examine how the various ARWU indicators paint the picture of progress for China compared to the United States. By doing this, I also situate the performance of Australian universities and ponder the implications for Australian universities in light of recent policy developments.
Alumni
Within the ARWU framework, educational quality is judged by the number of alumni who have received Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals. This indicator accounts for 10% of the overall score. In the 2026 rankings, 245 institutions across 37 countries recorded a score on this measure, highlighting its limited applicability across the global higher education sector. Of these institutions, 79 were from the United States, 27 from the United Kingdom, and 20 from Germany, while only seven were from Australian universities and three from Chinese universities.
Staff with Awards
The quality of faculty (or academic staff) is assessed using two proxy measures, each accounting 20% towards the overall score. The first indicator is the number of staff of an institution who have received Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals. However, most students are unlikely to directly benefit from teaching by these award recipients. In the 2026 rankings, only 156 institutions across 23 countries recorded a score on this indicator, again highlighting its limited relevance to most institutions globally. Among these institutions, 60 were in the United States, 17 in the United Kingdom, and 10 each in France and Germany. By comparison, only three Australia institutions received a score on this measure, while none were from China.
Highly Cited Researchers
The second measure to assess staff quality is the number of Highly Cited Researchers (HiCi) based on Clarivate’s annual list of HiCi. In the 2026 rankings, 710 institutions across 52 countries recorded at least one HiCi. On this indicator, China’s HiCis were affiliated with 164 institutions, compared with 159 institutions in the United States. In the United Kingdom, HiCis were distributed across 51 institutions, while Australia’s HiCis were with 26 institutions.
Australia’s share of HiCis has remained relatively unchanged at 4.4% over the past three years. Australia is fifth globally in the number of HiCis, recording 312 in 2025, with its highest number of 337 in 2022, whilst the United States had a share of 37.4% in 2025, down from 43.4% in 2018. By comparison, China’s share of HiCis has increased to 19.7% in 2025 from 7.9% in 2018.
Articles published in Nature and Science journals
There are two indicators to assess institutions on research output, each accounting 20% towards the overall score. One is the number of research articles published in Nature and Science between 2021 and 2025, noting that for specialist institutions in the humanities and social sciences, articles in Nature and Science is not considered. Instead, the score of this indicator is relocated to other indicators.
In the 2026 rankings, 955 institutions across 61 countries recorded a score on the Nature and Science indicator. Among these institutions, 209 were in China, 187 in the United States, 56 in the United Kingdom. Australia was equal eight with South Korea, who both listed with 28 institutions.
Articles Published
The second indicator to assess research output is the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index (Web of Science) in 2025. In the 2026 rankings, all 1000 ranked institutions recorded a score on this indicator.
The three institutions with the lowest score on this indicator were Amherst College (ranked in the 901-1000 band), Stockholm School of Economics (ranked in the 701-800 band) and Toulouse Capitole University (ranked in the 401-500 band). According to Clarivate’s InCites, these three institutions had between 160 and 240 articles published in 2025. However, Toulouse Capitole and Stockholm School of Economics had Award recipients and Amherst had Alumni recipients, thus warranting their overall standing despite their low scores in scholarly outputs.
Per Capita Performance
The final indicator in ARWU is called per capita performance and is calculated by dividing the weighted scores of the five indicators (Alumni, Award, HiCi, Nature & Science and Articles Published) by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff. ShanghaiRanking sources this information directly, removing the need for institutions to submit the data themselves.
In the 2026 rankings, all 1000 rankings recorded a score on this indicator. Of the institutions listed among the top 100, 25 are from the United States, 22 are from Germany, 9 are from China, and 6 are from Australia.
Changing progress across the globe
The yearly publication of the ARWU has chartered the progress China has made in developing its national system. By doing so, it has also mapped progress for other countries, particularly liberal and mature economies.
Whilst China has surpassed the United States in volume of scholarly outputs, it has yet to have an impact on the measures of esteem (Alumni and Award).
On the HiCi measure, China is making significant progress. We are likely to see China surpass the United States over the next 20 years, if not sooner.
The landscape of knowledge production is rapidly changing. Consider that in 2022, nine of the top 10 institutions with the highest number of articles indexed in the Web of Science were from the United States, with the remainder from the United Kingdom. In 2025, eight of the top 10 institutions with the highest number of articles were from China and two from the United States.
For scholarly output in 2025, Harvard was 268 articles ahead of Zhejiang and 1901 ahead of Shanghai Jiao Tong, with a total of 27,783 articles published. In 2022, Harvard had 9,996 articles published and was 8,567 articles ahead of Zheijiang and 8,987 ahead of Shanghai Jiao Tong. The University of Melbourne is Australia’s highest producer of articles, surpassing 10,000 over the past seven years (10,744 in 2025), followed by Syndey with 10,224 in 2025.
Takeaway messages
To do well in the ARWU and be recognised as a world class university, a concentration of resources for research endeavours is required, rather than large cohorts of students spread across study levels and disciplines.
Australian universities have performed strongly in global rankings, including the ARWU, due in part to the revenue generated from international student enrolments. This income has enabled institutions to strengthen their research capabilities, including attracting, developing, and supporting Hi-Cis.
However, the prospects for further improvement appear limited.
Current policy settings relating to both international student intake and the growth of domestic student places constrain the ability of Australian research-intensive universities to make additional gains and challenge the capacity of mid-tier institutions to sustain their current performance.
To maintain their standing, universities will need to focus on areas within their direct control. This includes preserving research performance, enhancing educational quality, and responding effectively to increasing competition from overseas institutions, particularly in Asia. Many Asian universities have made substantial investments in both teaching quality and research excellence, improving their global competitiveness.
Australian universities will also need to become more strategic in building and strengthening partnerships with emerging Asian institutions. This will be increasingly important as universities in mature liberal economies who face slower growth and heightened competitive pressures.
Merging universities only enable scale and the ability to progress up to a point; but building up a reputation takes decades.
Furthermore, Australian universities need to be cognisant of the shifting geostrategic landscape, including the changing nature of industrial endeavours. We will need to be resilient and have the appetite to collaborate across borders and industry sectors if our institutions are to remain relevant.
Angel Calderon is Director of Strategic Insights at RMIT University.