The 2025 results for the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) were published last week, and rank the University of Sussex eighth in the UK (the same as last year), and equal 72nd in the world for Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners (Quality of Faculty). We have also seen a small increase in the academic citations indicator.
This international league table ranks the top 1,000 research universities worldwide on an annual basis. The ranking uses six indicators: the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; research published in Nature and Science; the number of highly cited researchers; the volume of papers indexed in prominent citation databases, and the per capita performance of academics.
Overall the University remains ranked in the 201-300 band worldwide, and the 19-26 band in the UK. Sussex’s ranking for Highly Cited Researchers has improved over the last year. This category refers to the number of Highly Cited Researchers selected by the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. Read more about the five Sussex researchers on the 2024 Highly Cited list, whose work has demonstrated a significant and broad far-reaching influence in their fields.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil said: “Sussex has a history of ground-breaking and truly transformational contributions to knowledge and understanding across the disciplines, which is recognised by our position as 8th in the UK for Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners. I am particularly pleased to see our progress in the Highly Cited Researchers category, and I warmly congratulate the distinguished academics from across our Faculties whose research is having such a significant impact worldwide. While we celebrate these achievements, we must also continue to examine further ways to strengthen our research performance across all areas.”
The ARWU was first published in 2003 and is updated annually by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
U.S. News & World Report 2025-26 Best Global Universities Rankings
Sussex is ranked 25th in the UK in the U.S. News & World Report ranking published recently. The University is also ranked 104th in Europe, and 259th globally. The ranking, which is important in the US and internationally, encompasses 2,250 universities worldwide and focuses on research performance using 13 separate ranking factors.
The subject area ranking, which use a different methodology to the global ranking, rates 23,450 universities worldwide across 51 subjects. Sussex is rated 75th in Space Science, and is in the top 200 for Economics and Business, Social Sciences and Public Health, and Psychiatry/Psychology. The University is also ranked 14th in the UK for Economics and Business.
Daily Mail university guide
The 2026 Daily Mail university guide was published online on Thursday 14 August. The University saw a fall in position overall to 63rd in the UK. We have two subjects in the top 10 – Computer Games and Animation at 5th, and English Language at 6th.
The majority of newspaper university guides will be published in the autumn.