Browse the full results of the World University Rankings by Subject 2025
Concerns over the “crisis” in humanities look set to continue this year, but analysis of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings by Subject 2025 reveals its continued importance to elite institutions.
After almost a decade of playing second fiddle to Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took the top spot in the arts and humanities – as well as in business and economics, and social sciences.
While historically known for its expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, MIT has now become the best place to study the arts – with high scores in each of the five pillars underlying the methodology, particularly research quality and international outlook.
And this appears to be helping its overall ranking, as the private research university climbed to second place overall in the THE World University Rankings 2025 – becoming the highest-ranked US institution and displaying its best-ever performance.
View the full World University Rankings by Subject 2025 results
- Arts and Humanities
- Business and Economics
- Computer Science
- Education Studies
- Engineering
- Law
- Life Sciences
- Medical and Health
- Physical Sciences
- Psychology
- Social Sciences
Among the 11 subject rankings, Stanford finished number one for education studies, law and psychology, Harvard University was first for engineering and life sciences, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was number one for physical sciences. The remaining two subjects, computer science and medical and health, were led by the University of Oxford.
Although no Asian universities topped any of the individual subjects, the continent’s institutions are well represented across the rankings. China and Singapore appear in the top 50s for all 11 subjects, Hong Kong is represented in nine of them, and Japan appears for eight.
Asia’s best performance is in business and economics where Peking University and Tsinghua University both rose to take fourth and sixth place, respectively.
Alongside the University of Hong Kong, both of these Chinese universities finished in the top 10 for education studies as well. Meanwhile, the National University of Singapore is in ninth position in engineering again and cracked the top 10 in physical sciences – the first institution from Asia to achieve this – in 10th place.
Asia’s performance in the rankings reflect the “multipolar higher education world” of today, in which national academic capacity is much more broadly distributed, Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, told THE.
“In this setting, over time the relative position of countries in the Anglosphere and Western Europe must decline, not because their absolute quality is declining but because the field of comparison is more crowded with other countries coming up,” he said.
Higher education systems in East and South-East Asia have risen over the last two decades because of growth in student numbers, government funding increases, more focused performance-oriented organisation and management, and selective internationalisation policies, he added.
Number one-ranked institutions across World University Rankings 2025: by subject
| Ranking | Top institution | Country/territory |
| Arts and Humanities | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
| Business and Economics | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
| Computer Science | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| Education Studies | Stanford University | United States |
| Engineering | Harvard University | United States |
| Law | Stanford University | United States |
| Life Sciences | Harvard University | United States |
| Medical and Health | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| Physical Sciences | California Institute of Technology | United States |
| Psychology | Stanford University | United States |
| Social Sciences | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
However, it was a different story in the arts. MIT was closely followed in the arts and humanities ranking by the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, along with many others from the US and the UK.
The highest-placed institution from outside Europe or North America is the National University of Singapore at 25th. And Peking and Tsinghua slid down the table to 38th and 39th place respectively.
Could this be why China’s top-performing institutions are yet to break into the top 10 overall?
“While China and Asia have made significant strides in social sciences, arts and humanities continue to lag due to several structural, historical and political factors,” said Futao Huang, vice-director of the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University.
Asian governments’ historical side-lining of arts and humanities to prioritise practical and applied disciplines continues today through often restrictive policies, he added.
Huang said that leading institutions that focus on STEM, such as Caltech – which topped the overall World University Rankings from 2012 to 2016 – show that it is possible to achieve global excellence without such strengths.
“While strong arts and humanities programmes are not a strict prerequisite for a university to be deemed world-class, they can play a crucial role in fostering interdisciplinary research, addressing societal challenges and enriching cultural and intellectual diversity,” he said.
“However, comprehensive universities like Tsinghua and Peking aim for a broader mission, and arts and humanities remain vital in shaping well-rounded graduates and maintaining a global reputation, despite their lower rankings in these fields.”
For Joseph Chinyong Liow, chair of comparative and international politics at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, institutions must have arts and humanities to be deemed truly world-class. However, he said “that is not always the case in many institutions who claim to embrace interdisciplinarity”.
“More often than not, when they say that, they basically mean that arts and humanities, or even the social sciences sometimes, are but the cherry on top,” he said.
The dominance of English might be one reason why universities in Asia, and elsewhere, are less visible in certain subject rankings – particularly in humanities fields that “continue to be defined by works written in English” and where “language is the primary tool of the trade”, said Liow.
There are signs, however, that things may slowly be changing. European and North-American universities represented 80 per cent of all spots in the arts and humanities ranking in 2021, but this fell to 70 per cent in 2025.
Asian institutions now occupy 16 per cent of the top 750 spots – up from 9 per cent just four years previously.
To continue this improvement, Huang said there are a number of important solutions that nations in this region should adopt.
“Increase investment in arts and humanities, foster a favourable academic environment – particularly by ensuring academic freedom – and treat these disciplines on par with STEM fields when developing national higher education policies and strategies.”
