More than 2,000 universities in World University Rankings for first time

A record number of universities will be ranked in Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2025, published next month.

A total of 2,092 institutions will feature in the table, a 9.7 per cent increase on last year, marking the largest rise in the past five years. The number of countries or territories represented has also increased from 108 to 115. 

Turkey and India have seen the most significant growth in the number of ranked universities added compared with last year, with 16 new universities each. India’s ranked universities increased from 91 to 107, while Turkey’s increased from 75 to 91. India now has the same number of institutions ranked as the UK.

In Africa, Egypt added the most new universities since last year at seven, and Nigeria saw an increase of six. In Europe, France experienced the largest growth with six additional universities. In South America, Brazil and Argentina added five universities each.

The US remains the most represented country, with 174 universities ranked, a 3 per cent increase on last year.

Over the past five years, Asia has contributed the most new entrants to the ranking. Of the 211 universities that joined the ranking for the first time since the 2021 edition, 60 per cent are from Asia, 17 per cent from Europe, 10 per cent from Africa and 10 per cent from South America.

Meanwhile, the subjects with the most notable participation growth are law, which increased by 18 per cent, social sciences (up 9.5 per cent), education (up 9.1 per cent) and computer science (up 9 per cent). Engineering remains the subject with the highest participation, with 71 per cent of ranked universities providing data on this area.

Figures published in June revealed that 2,860 institutions submitted data for the World University Rankings 2025 between January and March. While data submission is open to all universities, institutions are ranked only if they teach undergraduates, produce research across a range of subjects and have published at least 1,000 research publications between 2019 and 2023, with a minimum of 100 a year.

Seven countries have joined the ranking for the first time this year: Bahrain, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mongolia, Paraguay, Rwanda, Syria and Uzbekistan. Each of these countries is represented by one university, except for Uzbekistan which is represented by three.

This year, the number of research papers universities are required to publish annually to be eligible for the rankings was reduced from 150 to 100, meaning some institutions qualified for the first time. This accounts for 29 per cent (53) of the new universities ranked.

Billy Wong, THE’s principal data scientist, said that there are “many fast-growing universities doing interesting research and lowering the annual threshold allows us to include them in the rankings”.

“The other new entrants reflect the growing importance of the World University Rankings and the strengthening of university systems across the world,” he added.

The data will also fuel THE’s 2025 Subject Rankings, as well as several regional and thematic rankings, including the Arab, Asia, Latin America and Young University tables, and the inaugural Interdisciplinary Science Rankings.

The World University Rankings 2025 will be published on 9 October 2024.