The 2025 THE world university rankings were released a short time ago. In short, the top of the table hasn’t changed much, but Australia appears to have dropped a touch.
Overview
- Oxford holds on to the top spot for the ninth consecutive year, bolstered by significant improvements in industry engagement and teaching
- MIT rises to second place, overtaking Stanford, which drops to sixth
- China edges closer to the top 10, further boosting its global research influence
- Australia’s top five universities all slip down the rankings, due to declining reputation and international outlook
- Three new countries join the top 200 – Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – highlighting the rise of emerging markets in higher education
The 2025 rankings includes 2,092 ranked universities. There are 185 new entries when compared with last year.
The methodology, is based on:
- 157 million citations
- 18 million research publications
- survey responses from more than 93,000 scholars globally
Top of the Table
1 University of Oxford United Kingdom
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States
3 Harvard University United States
4 Princeton University United States
5 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
6 Stanford University United States
7 California Institute of Technology United States
8 University of California, Berkeley United States
9 Imperial College London United Kingdom
10 Yale University United States
Australia’s top 10
39 University of Melbourne (down from 37 in 2024)
=58 Monash University (down from 54 in 2024)
61 The University of Sydney (down from 60 in 2024)
=73 Australian National University (down from 67 in 2024)
77 The University of Queensland (down from 70 in 2024)
83 UNSW Sydney (up from 84 in 2024)
=128 University of Adelaide (down from 111 in 2024)
=149 The University of Western Australia (down from 143 in 2024)
=154 University of Technology Sydney (down from 148 in 2024)
178 Macquarie University (up from 180 in 2024)
