Carolina Ranks 35th in 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities

Graduation banners hang at South Building May 9, 2016, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo by Jon Gardiner.)
Graduation banners hang at South Building May 9, 2016, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo by Jon Gardiner.)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranks 35th in the world and 25th in the U.S. among global universities, according to the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released by the Center for World Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on August 15.

“UNC’s performance in this ranking is a reflection of the research being done by Carolina’s faculty and students on a global scale,” said Ronald Strauss, executive vice provost and chief international officer. “We are proud to be considered a world-class institution.”

UNC tied with the University of Manchester in England for 35th in the world. UNC was ranked 39th in 2015 and 36th in 2014. This year, Harvard University placed first, followed by Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively.

Since 2003, ARWU has ranked more than 1,200 universities and published the best 500 universities annually. The six indicators used by ARWU to rank universities include the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices and the per capita academic performance of an institution.

For each indicator of academic or research performance, the highest scoring institution is assigned a score of 100 and other institutions are calculated as a percentage of the top score.

The center also released 2016 subject rankings in the engineering fields. Carolina placed highly in environmental science and engineering, coming in 51-75th in this area.

For a full list of rankings, visit http://www.shanghairanking.com.