Best universities for life sciences degrees 2024

Find the best universities for life sciences using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data

October 28 2020

If you’re choosing where to study pharmacy, biochemistry, zoology or other related subjects, Times Higher Education’s ranking for life sciences can help you find the best universities in the world for your degree.

The top colleges for life sciences are concentrated in the US and the UK: 195 of the 895 universities in the Times Higher Education ranking for life sciences are in these two countries.

Older prestigious institutions take the top spots, including Harvard University in first place, with the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology following closely behind.

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Life sciences takes in a range of subjects, from forestry to biotechnology. A full list of degrees and what you can do with them appears below.

Graduates of life sciences degrees go on to work in a variety of fields. Many jobs directly use life science research and knowledge, such as roles in pharmaceutical companies, environmental work and even forensic science.

The life sciences ranking assesses universities using 13 indicators of excellence that evaluate teaching, research, research influence, innovation and international outlook. The full methodology can be found here.

Best universities worldwide

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Top five universities for life sciences degrees

1. Harvard University

As is the case at many US colleges, undergraduates at Harvard University have the opportunity to take a variety of different courses before declaring a major subject.

Within life sciences, there are many interdisciplinary foundational courses grouped in nine concentrations to help students “explore the diversity of living systems”. The majors include biomedical engineering, neurobiology and human evolutionary biology.

Students are encouraged to do their own original research, and many courses are hands-on.

According to the university, life science graduates often go on to postgraduate work, including medical or scientific research. Other graduates have recently pursued careers in business, consulting and environmental advocacy.

Harvard is perhaps the world’s best-known university; it regularly takes the top spot in global reputation surveys. It has built its reputation, wealth and influence over more than 300 years, having been founded in 1636.

Although tuition is expensive, students from low-income families are fully supported by university grants. For the class of 2019, only 5.3 per cent of applicants made it through the competitive application process.

2. University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge, in the UK, is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious higher education institutions, and follows a collegiate system.

Its School of Biological Sciences contains nine departments and various research centres, including the departments of biochemistry, pharmacology and zoology.

There is also a Graduate School of Life Sciences, which is responsible for master’s degrees and doctorates.

Four major undergraduate programmes in life sciences are offered: biological sciences as a natural science specialism, a pre-clinical veterinary science programme, a psychological and behavioural sciences programme, and medical science.

Students have close interaction with teachers through the tutorial system and are automatically members of their college community, where they eat meals, live in college-owned buildings and attend recreational activities.

Charles Darwin, perhaps the most famous life scientist of them all, was an alumnus of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and many other prominent biologists have studied or taught at the university.

3. University of Oxford

Life sciences degrees at the University of Oxford are spread across a number of specialised departments within both the science and clinical divisions of the university.

Oxford is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities. It lies an hour west of London and is renowned for its architecturally impressive colleges dotted around the centre of the small town.

Many world-leading academics work at the university. Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist, is affiliated to the university and can often be seen around town or at public events.

Oxford students belong to a college, where they live, eat and attend small-group tutorials with teachers. Postgraduate students are more likely to live off campus and will not necessarily be taught within their college.

In general, Oxford graduates progress to high-profile careers, and many prominent politicians, cultural figures and award-winning scientists are associated with the university.

What can you do with a life sciences degree?

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What can you do with a veterinary science degree?

4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Many academic departments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer courses in life sciences subjects, to contribute towards a major or minor degree subject.

Courses range from biological engineering – a pioneering new discipline that combines principles of engineering and biological systems – to “Science, Technology and Society”, which offers a more comprehensive overview of life sciences and its applications.

The university offers undergraduate and postgraduate life sciences degrees. Although an undergraduate major in a life science subject is excellent preparation for many jobs, further study in health sciences or engineering is a common post-graduation option.

Many life sciences graduates will continue on to medical school. Other career paths suggested by the School of Life Sciences are finance, intellectual property law and forensics.

Across all science and technology disciplines, MIT has an excellent reputation, and admission is accordingly very selective; only 8 per cent of applicants win a place, although life sciences programmes are not quite as competitive as computer science and engineering courses.

More than 80 affiliates of the university have won Nobel prizes, and many more have achieved recognition through other awards.

5. Stanford University

With one of the largest and most beautiful campuses in the US, Stanford University is a popular destination for US and international students.

It is particularly renowned for science and innovation, and university researchers, students and alumni contribute significantly to technological development in Silicon Valley, located right near the university.

Stanford’s department of biology leads the way for life sciences research, while the bioengineering department creates a fusion of engineering and life sciences by inventing new technologies.

The biology department offers courses in biochemistry, biophysics, computational biology, conservational biology and many other subdisciplines.

Many Stanford alumni have won prestigious accolades, such as Nobel prizes, Rhodes scholarships and Turing awards.

Almost 90 per cent of undergraduate students live on campus, and all first-years are required to live on campus.

Of the more than 15,000 students, more than 20 per cent are international.

Student experience of life sciences

Trading America for Australia: my mother sent me to study 9,000 miles away!
Women in STEM: undertaking PhD research in cancer
Pursuing a PhD in neuroscience
Why I chose to study at Osaka City University
Why I chose to study at the National University of Singapore
Attending a small agricultural university

Best universities for life sciences 2021

Click each institution to view its World University Rankings 2021 profile

Life sciences rank 2021	Life sciences rank 2020	University	Country/region
1	2	Harvard University	United States
2	1	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
3	3	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
4	4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
5	5	Stanford University	United States
6	9	Yale University	United States
7	6	California Institute of Technology	United States
8	14	University of California, Berkeley	United States
9	7	Johns Hopkins University	United States
10	8	Princeton University	United States
11	13	The University of Chicago	United States
12	10	UCL	United Kingdom
13	=11	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
14	15	Tsinghua University	China
=15	=11	University of California, San Diego	United States
=15	17	Cornell University	United States
17	16	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
18	20	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
19	22	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
20	18	Columbia University	United States
21	21	Peking University	China
22	19	University of Pennsylvania	United States
23	23	Duke University	United States
24	25	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
=25	29	National University of Singapore	Singapore
=25	24	University of Toronto	Canada
27	30	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
=28	=27	University of California, Davis	United States
=28	26	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
=30	=27	University of British Columbia	Canada
=30	=33	Washington University in St Louis	United States
32	31	LMU Munich	Germany
33	=33	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
34	32	New York University	United States
35	37	Heidelberg University	Germany
36	35	King’s College London	United Kingdom
37	41	University of Melbourne	Australia
38	39	Kyoto University	Japan
39	43	McGill University	Canada
=40	42	The University of Queensland	Australia
=40	38	The University of Tokyo	Japan
42	44	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
43	40	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
44	45	Sorbonne University	France
45	48	Northwestern University	United States
46	=59	Technical University of Munich	Germany
47	49	Utrecht University	Netherlands
48	46	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
49	36	Uppsala University	Sweden
50	61	University of Freiburg	Germany
51	=52	KU Leuven	Belgium
52	=57	University of Sydney	Australia
53	=59	University of Zurich	Switzerland
=54	51	Ghent University	Belgium
=54	55	Monash University	Australia
=56	47	Australian National University	Australia
=56	=100	Fudan University	China
=58	75	Boston University	United States
=58	50	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
60	63	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
61	=67	University of Tübingen	Germany
62	56	University of Göttingen	Germany
=63	54	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
=63	=86	Zhejiang University	China
65	=57	University of Texas at Austin	United States
66	65	University of Geneva	Switzerland
67	62	Michigan State University	United States
68	66	University of Minnesota	United States
69	70	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
=70	64	Lund University	Sweden
=70	=71	Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
72	=52	University of Science and Technology of China	China
73	=71	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
74	=71	University of Helsinki	Finland
75	69	Montpellier University	France
76	83	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
77	=84	University of Groningen	Netherlands
78	=67	University of Aberdeen	United Kingdom
79	101–125	McMaster University	Canada
80	101–125	University of Florida	United States
81	74	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
82	94	Vanderbilt University	United States
=83	77	Seoul National University	South Korea
=83	90	University of Southern California	United States
=83	78	The University of Western Australia	Australia
86	=86	University of Bonn	Germany
=87	=86	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
=87	79	Stockholm University	Sweden
=89	=92	Osaka University	Japan
=89	=98	University of Würzburg	Germany
=91	76	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
=91	91	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
=91	=84	University of Vienna	Austria
=94	=92	University of Basel	Switzerland
=94	101–125	University of East Anglia	United Kingdom
96	101–125	École Polytechnique	France
97	101–125	University of Massachusetts	United States
=98	101–125	University of Cologne	Germany
=98	NR	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
=98	=80	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Alberta	Canada
101–125	151–175	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
101–125	101–125	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
101–125	=100	Brown University	United States
101–125	126–150	University of California, Irvine	United States
101–125	101–125	University of California, Riverside	United States
101–125	126–150	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
101–125	101–125	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Dundee	United Kingdom
101–125	96	Emory University	United States
101–125	95	University of Exeter	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Free University of Berlin	Germany
101–125	126–150	James Cook University	Australia
101–125	101–125	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
101–125	97	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
101–125	NR	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
101–125	126–150	Nanjing University	China
101–125	151–175	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
101–125	126–150	University of Paris	France
101–125	101–125	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States
101–125	101–125	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
101–125	101–125	Rice University	United States
101–125	101–125	University of St Andrews	United Kingdom
101–125	=80	Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences	Sweden
126–150	=86	Aarhus University	Denmark
126–150	126–150	University of Adelaide	Australia
126–150	101–125	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
126–150	101–125	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
126–150	301–400	East China Normal University	China
126–150	151–175	École Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
126–150	176–200	University of Hamburg	Germany
126–150	151–175	Hokkaido University	Japan
126–150	126–150	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Macquarie University	Australia
126–150	101–125	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
126–150	151–175	University of Montreal	Canada
126–150	126–150	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	North Carolina State University	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
126–150	101–125	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
126–150	101–125	Oregon State University	United States
126–150	151–175	University of Oslo	Norway
126–150	NR	Paris-Saclay University	France
126–150	151–175	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
126–150	101–125	Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy
126–150	201–250	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
126–150	126–150	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	TU Dresden	Germany
126–150	126–150	Tufts University	United States
151–175	=98	University of Arizona	United States
151–175	126–150	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
151–175	151–175	University of Auckland	New Zealand
151–175	126–150	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	Dartmouth College	United States
151–175	201–250	University of Delaware	United States
151–175	201–250	Florida State University	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Iceland	Iceland
151–175	151–175	Indiana University	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Konstanz	Germany
151–175	151–175	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russian Federation
151–175	151–175	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
151–175	NR	University of Notre Dame	United States
151–175	151–175	University of Reading	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	Stony Brook University	United States
151–175	126–150	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
151–175	151–175	University of Sussex	United Kingdom
151–175	176–200	University of Tartu	Estonia
151–175	126–150	University of Tasmania	Australia
151–175	126–150	Texas A&M University	United States
151–175	151–175	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)	South Korea
151–175	176–200	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
151–175	151–175	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
151–175	126–150	University of York	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	University of Antwerp	Belgium
176–200	201–250	University of Barcelona	Spain
176–200	201–250	University of Bergen	Norway
176–200	176–200	University of Bern	Switzerland
176–200	151–175	University of Cape Town	South Africa
176–200	126–150	Colorado State University, Fort Collins	United States
176–200	151–175	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
176–200	151–175	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
176–200	201–250	Goethe University Frankfurt	Germany
176–200	176–200	University of Gothenburg	Sweden
176–200	176–200	Iowa State University	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Kent	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
176–200	201–250	La Trobe University	Australia
176–200	NR	Université libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
176–200	151–175	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
176–200	151–175	Nagoya University	Japan
176–200	201–250	Nankai University	China
176–200	201–250	Northeastern University	United States
176–200	176–200	University of São Paulo	Brazil
176–200	176–200	Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)	China
176–200	201–250	University of Stirling	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	Tohoku University	Japan
176–200	176–200	University College Cork	Republic of Ireland
176–200	201–250	Vrije Universiteit Brussel	Belgium
176–200	151–175	University of Warwick	United Kingdom