UniversitySignals / 2003—2027

Program-level evidence

The broad table can hide the field that fits.

Specialist institutions often disappear inside an overall ranking—or never enter it at all. Subject tables reveal where focused research communities outperform their broad institutional position.

Hidden strengths

A specialist can lead its field without appearing broadly elite.

All 76 QS 2026 subject placements meeting one reproducible rule: subject top 10, plus an overall position of #300 or worse—or no overall listing. They span 25 subjects; subjects with no qualifying institution do not appear.

76 qualifying subject placements

Agriculture Forestry

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Sweden
Subject#3OverallNot listed

Agriculture Forestry

China Agricultural University

China
Subject#5Overall#=504

Agriculture Forestry

Iowa State University

United States
Subject#7Overall#449

Agriculture Forestry

Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Norway
Subject#10Overall#791-800

Architecture Built Environment

Manchester School of Architecture

United Kingdom
Subject#5OverallNot listed

Art & design

Royal College of Art

United Kingdom
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Art & design

University of the Arts London

United Kingdom
Subject#2OverallNot listed

Art & design

The New School, New York City and Paris

United States
Subject#3Overall#801-850

Art & design

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)

United States
Subject#4OverallNot listed

Art & design

Pratt Institute

United States
Subject#5Overall#1201-1400

Art & design

The Glasgow School of Art

United Kingdom
Subject#8OverallNot listed

Art & design

Design Academy Eindhoven

Netherlands
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Art History

The Courtauld Institute of Art

United Kingdom
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Art History

Royal College of Art

United Kingdom
Subject#4OverallNot listed

Art History

The New School, New York City and Paris

United States
Subject#9Overall#801-850

Business & management studies

INSEAD

France
Subject#4OverallNot listed

Business & management studies

London Business School

United Kingdom
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Business & management studies

Bocconi University

Italy
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Classics Ancient History

Scuola Normale Superiore

Italy
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Dentistry

Karolinska Institutet

Sweden
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Dentistry

Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), Amsterdam the Netherlands

Netherlands
Subject#3OverallNot listed

Dentistry

University of California, San Francisco

United States
Subject#6OverallNot listed

Dentistry

Institute of Science Tokyo

Japan
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Dentistry

Sichuan University

China
Subject#10Overall#=324

Development Studies

SOAS University of London

United Kingdom
Subject#2Overall#=511

Education Training

The Education University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong
Subject#7Overall#=530

Engineering Petroleum

Colorado School of Mines

United States
Subject#7Overall#=571

Geology

China University of Geosciences

China
Subject#10Overall#851-900

Hospitality & leisure management

EHL Hospitality Business School

Switzerland
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

Les Roches Global Hospitality Management Education

Switzerland
Subject#2OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

Glion Institute of Higher Education

Switzerland
Subject#3OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

SHMS - Swiss Hotel Management School

Switzerland
Subject#4OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

César Ritz Colleges Switzerland

Switzerland
Subject#5OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

University of Nevada - Las Vegas

United States
Subject#6OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

Hotelschool The Hague

Netherlands
Subject#7OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

HIM Business School

Switzerland
Subject#8OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

Culinary Arts Academy Switzerland

Switzerland
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Hospitality & leisure management

Macao University of Tourism (ex-Macao Institute for Tourism Studies)

Macau
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Library Information Management

Indiana University Bloomington

United States
Subject#7Overall#=306

Library Information Management

Rutgers University–New Brunswick

United States
Subject#9Overall#=328

Life Sciences Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

United States
Subject#=6OverallNot listed

Marketing

INSEAD

France
Subject#7OverallNot listed

Marketing

HEC Paris

France
Subject#8OverallNot listed

Marketing

Bocconi University

Italy
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

United States
Subject#8OverallNot listed

Medicine

Karolinska Institutet

Sweden
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Mineral & mining engineering

Colorado School of Mines

United States
Subject#1Overall#=571

Music

The Juilliard School

United States
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Music

Royal College of Music

United Kingdom
Subject#2OverallNot listed

Music

Curtis Institute of Music

United States
Subject#3OverallNot listed

Music

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

United Kingdom
Subject#4OverallNot listed

Music

Royal Academy of Music

United Kingdom
Subject#5OverallNot listed

Music

Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP)

France
Subject#6OverallNot listed

Music

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

United Kingdom
Subject#7OverallNot listed

Music

Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM)

United Kingdom
Subject#8OverallNot listed

Music

Shanghai Conservatory of Music

China
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Music

Moscow State Conservatory P. I. Tchaikovsky

Russia
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

The Juilliard School

United States
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Royal College of Music

United Kingdom
Subject#2OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Curtis Institute of Music

United States
Subject#=3OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

United Kingdom
Subject#=3OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Royal Academy of Music

United Kingdom
Subject#5OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP)

France
Subject#=6OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien

Austria
Subject#=6OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

United Kingdom
Subject#9OverallNot listed

Performing Arts

The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA)

Hong Kong
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Philosophy

Rutgers University–New Brunswick

United States
Subject#2Overall#=328

Politics

Sciences Po

France
Subject#3Overall#=367

Social Policy Administration

Syracuse University

United States
Subject#7Overall#741-750

Sports Related Subjects

Norwegian School of Sports Sciences

Norway
Subject#5OverallNot listed

Sports Related Subjects

German Sport University Cologne

Germany
Subject#10OverallNot listed

Theology Divinity Religious Studies

Boston College

United States
Subject#5Overall#=526

Veterinary Science

Royal Veterinary College, University of London

United Kingdom
Subject#1OverallNot listed

Veterinary Science

University of Guelph

Canada
Subject#4Overall#=504

Veterinary Science

Colorado State University

United States
Subject#=6Overall#=458

Veterinary Science

Iowa State University

United States
Subject#10Overall#449

This is the complete set of placements matching the rule above, not a new “most underrated” ranking. A university can appear in more than one subject because each subject-table result is a separate observation.

Find schools by what you want to study

Pick your subject, then see the top schools—and narrow to a country you’d actually consider.

Choose a discipline to reveal its highest-ranked universities, then filter the leaderboard to a single country to build a realistic list (for example, the best computer-science schools in Canada). The bars show which countries supply the most ranked programs in that field, so you can also let strength point you toward a destination.

Ranked institutions by home system

Top institutions

    Subject tables from 7 rankings: QS, ShanghaiRanking (GRAS), U.S. News, Times Higher Education, NTU, SCImago research areas, and Leiden. The chart summarizes the eight largest country groups; the country menu and paginated school list use every institution with a resolved country in the selected source table. Providers differ in method—publisher rankings weight reputation and surveys while NTU, SCImago, and Leiden are bibliometric—so read each as its own lens, not a shared scale. Banded ranks use their lower bound.

    Nature Index 2026

    Academic discipline leaders split across research systems.

    All eight latest academic discipline tables are included, with 4,048 published entries in total. Their #1 positions are led primarily by China (5) and United States (3). Browse one complete table at a time below.

    Complete published table500 institutions
    1. #1Tsinghua UniversityChinaShare549.04Count1516
    2. #2Zhejiang University (ZJU)ChinaShare473.84Count1058
    3. #3Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU)ChinaShare442.66Count1079
    4. #4Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU)ChinaShare394.77Count736
    5. #5University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)ChinaShare342.97Count944
    6. #6Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT)ChinaShare324.38Count639
    7. #7Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT)ChinaShare313.42Count600
    8. #8Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST)ChinaShare296.16Count600
    9. #9Peking University (PKU)ChinaShare288.2Count998
    10. #10Nanjing University (NJU)ChinaShare260.5Count649
    11. #11University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)ChinaShare259.12Count1191
    12. #12Sichuan University (SCU)ChinaShare252.79Count520
    13. #13Tianjin University (TJU)ChinaShare239.4Count636
    14. #14Central South University (CSU)ChinaShare235.35Count430
    15. #15Jilin University (JLU)ChinaShare234.7Count414
    16. #16Tongji UniversityChinaShare230.93Count542
    17. #17Fudan UniversityChinaShare219.46Count649
    18. #18Chongqing University (CQU)ChinaShare216.43Count474
    19. #19South China University of Technology (SCUT)ChinaShare208.98Count462
    20. #20North China Electric Power University (NCEPU)ChinaShare208.16Count323

    These are all entries in the eight Nature Index 2026 academic discipline tables in the archive (500 per discipline; Social sciences has 548). Share is a fractional publication contribution; Count is not used in the displayed rank. Nature Index covers a selected journal set and should not be generalized to teaching, access, or all scholarly fields.

    Multi-field profile

    Broad consensus does not imply uniform subject strength.

    Nature academic ranks for the leading multi-provider consensus cohort. A dash means the institution is outside that published subject table or could not be matched safely—not rank zero.

    InstitutionAppliedBiologicalChemistryEarth & environmentalHealthNaturalPhysicalSocial
    Harvard UniversityUnited States49158431881
    Stanford UniversityUnited States3455626717122
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)United States38183735351565
    University of OxfordUnited Kingdom7614643316251410
    University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom6812483142231620
    University College London (UCL)United Kingdom107631851022811112413
    Yale UniversityUnited States1678132601546847
    University of PennsylvaniaUnited States972291136116114618
    Imperial College LondonUnited Kingdom77541454451654735
    University of California, Berkeley (UCB)United States731949426921103
    Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States1942016421510584973
    Cornell UniversityUnited States7115906539455624
    Columbia UniversityUnited States12517170212447469
    Tsinghua UniversityChina11071125674
    Top 10Top 50Top 100Top 500

    How to use a subject table

    Turn a field rank into better questions.

    01

    Check the unit

    A university-wide subject score is not a guarantee about every department, degree, or campus.

    02

    Inspect the metric

    Publication Share, reputation, citations, and employer surveys answer different questions.

    03

    Verify the program

    Compare faculty, curriculum, facilities, placement, accreditation, cost, and admissions directly.

    04

    Look for durability

    Prefer recurring strength across years and methods to a single unusually favorable edition.