Karolinska Institute (KI) was last year the only Nordic university among the 50 best in the world. But in World University Ranking 2026, KI has dropped from 49th to 53rd place. It is the first time the medical university is outside the top 50. Less than ten years ago, KI was in 28th place in the same ranking.
Five more Swedish universities are declining, or remain in the same position as last year, in this year's measurement. Uppsala University, which has previously been on the top 100 list several times, no longer qualifies.
The next best in the Nordic countries is the Danish University of Copenhagen, which advances from 97th to 90th place. Times Higher Education notes that several universities in Denmark, Finland, and Norway are climbing in the ranking.
The number one in World University Ranking 2026 is the University of Oxford – for the tenth year in a row. The UK and the US completely dominate the top, but in eleventh place is the technical university ETH Zürich and then the Chinese Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Times Higher Education bases the ranking World University Ranking largely on the universities' research and to what extent they have been cited in scientific articles.
Corrected: An earlier version contained incorrect information about Lund University's placement.
Anna Lena Wallström/TT
Fact: The ranking
TT
(Last year's placement in parentheses)
1. University of Oxford, UK
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
3. Princeton, USA (shared third place)
3. University of Cambridge, UK (shared third place)
53. Karolinska Institute, Sweden (49)
90. University of Copenhagen, Denmark (97)
95. Lund University, Sweden (95)
98. Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden (95)
101. Aarhus University, Denmark (110)
105. University of Helsinki, Finland (107)
113. University of Oslo, Norway (116)
