Shanghai Ranking 2016: top universities for natural sciences and mathematics

Academic Ranking of World Universities reveals its top universities for natural sciences and mathematics according to the 2016 subject ranking league tables, known as the ARWU-FIELD rankings

September 7 2016

By Carly Minsky

For the third year in a row, UC Berkeley in California has taken the top spot in ShanghaiRanking’s natural sciences and mathematics category in the ARWU-FIELD 2016.

The ranking results reveal the 200 best universities for physical sciences and maths in 2016.

All of the top six universities are in the United States, with one UK university, one Japanese university, one Swiss university and another American university completing the top 10.

Oxford and Cambridge are the UK’s highest ranked universities, at positions 13 and seven respectively.

The top university in Asia is the University of Tokyo in eighth place, followed by another Japanese university – the University of Kyoto – just outside the top 20.

More ShanghaiRanking results:

-Shanghai subject ranking 2016 overview
-Academic Ranking of World Universities 2016: main results
-Full results for life and agriculture sciences
-Full results for engineering, technology and computer sciences
-Full results for clinical medicine and pharmacy
-Full results for social sciences

In total, 27 countries are represented in the science and maths ranking. Although none feature in the top 20, China’s universities are second only to the United States for the highest number of universities in the ranking overall.

For students looking to study physics, chemistry, maths or related subjects, opportunities to attend a top university are spread all over the world; there is a fairly even spread of top-200 universities across Europe, Americas and Asia/Pacific regions.

Five broad subject rankings were released on Thursday 8 September 2016 (Beijing time) as part of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The ranking methodology uses a number of indicators to rank 200 universities for each of the five disciplines. These indicators include alumni prize-winners and research publications in top journals.

Top universities for Natural Sciences and Mathematics: ARWU-FIELD 2016

World Rank	Institution	Country	Region
1	University of California, Berkeley	USA	Americas
2	Stanford University	USA	Americas
3	Princeton University	USA	Americas
4	Harvard University	USA	Americas
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA	Americas
6	California Institute of Technology	USA	Americas
7	University of Cambridge	UK	Europe
8	University of Tokyo	Japan	Asia/Pacific
9	ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich	Switzerland	Europe
10	University of California, Los Angeles	USA	Americas
11	University of Colorado Boulder	USA	Americas
12	Columbia University	USA	Americas
13	University of Oxford	UK	Europe
14	Pierre and Marie Curie University	France	Europe
15	University of California, Santa Barbara	USA	Americas
16	Northwestern University	USA	Americas
17	Cornell University	USA	Americas
18	University of Chicago	USA	Americas
19	University of Michigan	USA	Americas
20	Yale University	USA	Americas
21	Kyoto University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
22	Peking University	China	Asia/Pacific
23	Johns Hopkins University	USA	Americas
24	The University of Manchester	UK	Europe
25	Paris-Sud University	France	Europe
26	University of Washington	USA	Americas
27	University of Wisconsin-Madison	USA	Americas
28	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	USA	Americas
29	Imperial College London	UK	Europe
29	University of Science and Technology of China	China	Asia/Pacific
31	Rice University	USA	Americas
32	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia	Asia/Pacific
33	University of Copenhagen	Denmark	Europe
34	Duke University	USA	Americas
35	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland	Europe
36	Nagoya University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
36	University of Edinburgh	UK	Europe
36	University of California, San Diego	USA	Americas
39	Heidelberg University	Germany	Europe
40	University of Texas at Austin	USA	Americas
41	University of Geneva	Switzerland	Europe
42	University of California, Irvine	USA	Americas
43	Tsinghua University	China	Asia/Pacific
44	Georgia Institute of Technology	USA	Americas
44	Technion Israel Institute of Technology	Israel	Asia/Pacific
44	LMU Munich	Germany	Europe
47	University of Pennsylvania	USA	Americas
48	University of Minnesota	USA	Americas
49	Pennsylvania State University	USA	Americas
50	Purdue University	USA	Americas
51-75	Durham University	UK	Europe
51-75	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany	Europe
51-75	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russia	Europe
51-75	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	Asia/Pacific
51-75	National University of Singapore	Singapore	Asia/Pacific
51-75	Osaka University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
51-75	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	USA	Americas
51-75	Texas A&M University	USA	Americas
51-75	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel	Asia/Pacific
51-75	Tohoku University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
51-75	University College London	UK	Europe
51-75	University of Arizona	USA	Americas
51-75	University of Bern	Switzerland	Europe
51-75	University of Bonn	Germany	Europe
51-75	University of British Columbia	Canada	Americas
51-75	University of California, Riverside	USA	Americas
51-75	University of California, Santa Cruz	USA	Americas
51-75	University of Maryland, College Park	USA	Americas
51-75	University of Massachusetts	USA	Americas
51-75	University of Strasbourg	France	Europe
51-75	University of Toronto	Canada	Americas
51-75	University of Warwick	UK	Europe
51-75	Utrecht University	Netherlands	Europe
51-75	Weizmann Institute of Science	Israel	Asia/Pacific
51-75	Zhejiang University	China	Asia/Pacific
76-100	Aix-Marseille University	France	Europe
76-100	Boston University	USA	Americas
76-100	Brown University	USA	Americas
76-100	Carnegie Mellon University	USA	Americas
76-100	École Normale Supérieure	France	Europe
76-100	École Polytechnique	France	Europe
76-100	Fudan University	China	Asia/Pacific
76-100	McGill University	Canada	Americas
76-100	Michigan State University	USA	Americas
76-100	Nanjing University	China	Asia/Pacific
76-100	RWTH Aachen University	Germany	Europe
76-100	Seoul National University	South Korea	Asia/Pacific
76-100	Sun Yat-sen University	China	Asia/Pacific
76-100	Technical University of Munich	Germany	Europe
76-100	Ohio State University	USA	Americas
76-100	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan	Asia/Pacific
76-100	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany	Europe
76-100	University of Florida	USA	Americas
76-100	University of Helsinki	Finland	Europe
76-100	University of Notre Dame	USA	Americas
76-100	University of Southampton	UK	Europe
76-100	University of Southern California	USA	Americas
76-100	University of Wuerzburg	Germany	Europe
76-100	Paris Diderot University – Paris 7	France	Europe
76-100	Uppsala University	Sweden	Europe
101-150	Aarhus University	Denmark	Europe
101-150	Autonomous University of Madrid	Spain	Europe
101-150	City University of Hong Kong	China-hk	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Curtin University	Australia	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Dalian University of Technology	China	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	Europe
101-150	Ghent University	Belgium	Europe
101-150	Indian Institute of Science	India	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Iowa State University	USA	Americas
101-150	Joseph Fourier University	France	Europe
101-150	King Abdullah University of Science and Technology	Saudi Arabia	Asia/Pacific
101-150	King's College London	UK	Europe
101-150	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Korea University	South Korea	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Lanzhou University	China	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Monash University	Australia	Asia/Pacific
101-150	New York University	USA	Americas
101-150	Northeastern University	USA	Americas
101-150	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands	Europe
101-150	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Soochow University	China	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Stockholm University	Sweden	Europe
101-150	Australian National University	Australia	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	China-hk	Asia/Pacific
101-150	University of Glasgow	UK	Europe
101-150	University of Melbourne	Australia	Asia/Pacific
101-150	Université libre de Bruxelles	Belgium	Europe
101-150	University of Barcelona	Spain	Europe
101-150	University of Bologna	Italy	Europe
101-150	University of Bordeaux	France	Europe
101-150	University of Bristol	UK	Europe
101-150	University of California, Davis	USA	Americas
101-150	University of Exeter	UK	Europe
101-150	University of Groningen	Netherlands	Europe
101-150	University of Hamburg	Germany	Europe
101-150	University of Hawai’i at Mānoa	USA	Americas
101-150	University of Innsbruck	Austria	Europe
101-150	University of Iowa	USA	Americas
101-150	University of Leeds	UK	Europe
101-150	University of Münster	Germany	Europe
101-150	University of Nottingham	UK	Europe
101-150	University of Santiago de Compostela	Spain	Europe
101-150	University of São Paulo	Brazil	Americas
101-150	University of Stuttgart	Germany	Europe
101-150	University of Sussex	UK	Europe
101-150	University of Tennessee, Knoxville	USA	Americas
101-150	University of Victoria	Canada	Americas
101-150	University of Vienna	Austria	Europe
101-150	University of Zurich	Switzerland	Europe
101-150	Xiamen University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Arizona State University	USA	Americas
151-200	Beihang University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Beijing Normal University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Claude Bernard University Lyon 1	France	Europe
151-200	Colorado State University	USA	Americas
151-200	East China University of Science and Technology	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Florida State University	USA	Americas
151-200	Hokkaido University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Hunan University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Jilin University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	King Saud University	Saudi Arabia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Kyushu University	Japan	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Macquarie University	Australia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	National Taiwan University	China-tw	Asia/Pacific
151-200	National Tsing Hua University	China-tw	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Northeast Normal University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Pohang University of Science and Technology	South Korea	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Polytechnic University of Valencia	Spain	Europe
151-200	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy	Europe
151-200	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Chinese University of Hong Kong	China-hk	Asia/Pacific
151-200	University of Adelaide	Australia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	The University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Hong Kong	China-hk	Asia/Pacific
151-200	University of New Mexico	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Queensland	Australia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	University of Reading	UK	Europe
151-200	University at Buffalo	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Delaware	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Florence	Italy	Europe
151-200	Goethe University Frankfurt	Germany	Europe
151-200	Justus Liebig University Giessen	Germany	Europe
151-200	University of Göttingen	Germany	Europe
151-200	University of Houston	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Miami	USA	Americas
151-200	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Oslo	Norway	Europe
151-200	University of Padua	Italy	Europe
151-200	University of Pisa	Italy	Europe
151-200	University of Pittsburgh	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Rochester	USA	Americas
151-200	University of Rostock	Germany	Europe
151-200	University of Sydney	Australia	Asia/Pacific
151-200	University of Trieste	Italy	Europe
151-200	University of Valencia	Spain	Europe
151-200	University of Zaragoza	Spain	Europe
151-200	Vanderbilt University	USA	Americas
151-200	VU University Amsterdam	Netherlands	Europe
151-200	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China	Asia/Pacific
151-200	Yonsei University	South Korea	Asia/Pacific