Overview

• Times Higher Education highlights a shifting balance of research strength toward East Asia, even as the global top 10 remains exclusively US and UK institutions.
• The UK records its weakest headline performance in a decade with 49 universities in the top 500 and worsening student‑staff ratios.
• Australia’s standings improve: Sydney 53rd, Monash 58th, ANU 73rd, UNSW 79th, Queensland 80th, UTS 145th, and Macquarie up 12 places to 166th.
• Leading Asian results include Tsinghua 12th, Peking 13th, the National University of Singapore 17th, and the University of Tokyo rising to 26th.
• The 2026 rankings evaluate 2,191 institutions using 19 million research papers, 1.5 million reputation‑survey votes and detailed institutional data.