Two universities in Hong Kong have ranked among the top 100 in a global academic ranking that evaluates 1,000 schools worldwide.
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) moved up five spots from last year’s 67th place to 62nd. At the same time, City University (CityU) advanced four places, from 99th to 95th, in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy last week.
Launched in 2003, the annual ranking was initially published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University before ShanghaiRanking Consultancy took over its publication six years later.
For the 2026 ranking, the consultancy reviewed 2,500 institutions using third-party data before selecting the top 1,000.
The methodology takes into account indicators such as the number of alumni and staff who have won Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, as well as the number of papers published in journals Nature and Science.
Each indicator is assigned a weighting, which is then used to calculate an overall score for each university.
Institutions in the United States occupied the top positions globally, with Harvard University ranked first, followed by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In Asia, Tsinghua University remained the highest-ranked institution, placing 18th globally. The University of Tokyo came in at 30th, while the National University of Singapore rose to 53rd.
According to the latest available subject-level data, HKU’s strongest fields were education, finance and transportation science and technology, followed by remote sensing, dentistry and oral sciences.
At CityU, which the firm recognises as Hong Kong’s second-highest-ranked university, library and information science, nanotechnology and energy science were among its strongest-ranked subjects.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong remained in the 101-150 bracket, unchanged from last year. Hong Kong Polytechnic University also moved into the 101-150 bracket, up from the 151-200 range in 2025.
