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Chinese universities have surged to the top of the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2025, overtaking Harvard University in the Science category and highlighting a major shift in global academic performance. Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University now occupy the top two positions, pushing Harvard down to third place.
The latest rankings show a strong dominance by Chinese institutions, which hold most of the top positions, signaling China’s growing influence in global scientific research. The CWTS Leiden Ranking, compiled by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University, evaluates the research output of more than 1,500 universities worldwide using data from the Web of Science.
In earlier years, particularly during the 2006–2009 period, US universities dominated the rankings, with Harvard consistently leading the list. However, the landscape has changed significantly, with several leading American institutions no longer appearing among the top performers.
Harvard, despite its recent decline, remained the world’s top-ranked science university for over a decade before Chinese universities began to take the lead.