Harvard University has slipped to third place in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2025 in the Science category as Chinese universities dominate the top positions.
The top two positions are now held by Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University of China. Apart from Harvard’s third-place position, the remaining top nine spots are dominated by Chinese institutions.
The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an online platform that provides insights into the scientific performance of more than 1,500 major universities worldwide. The ranking is produced by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
The first CWTS Leiden rankings were published for the 2006–2009 period. At that time, universities from the United States dominated the list, with Harvard University ranked first, followed by the University of Toronto in second place and the University of Michigan in third.
During this period, U.S. universities occupied most of the top ten positions. However, the landscape has changed significantly over time.
Six prominent U.S. universities that were in the top ten during the 2006–2009 period are no longer ranked in the top fifteen. These include the University of Michigan, the University of California–Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington–Seattle, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University.
Harvard University was first overtaken by China’s Zhejiang University in the 2019–2022 ranking period. The university slipped again to third place in the following 2020–2023 rankings.
Despite these recent shifts, Harvard University maintained the top position for more than a decade, holding first place consistently until the 2018–2021 period.
The Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition is based on data from the Web of Science database and provides detailed information on the scientific performance of universities worldwide.
