Asia has one institution in global top 20 for mathematics, and it's not China or Singapore's

Japan's Kyoto University is the only Asian institution to rank among the world's top 20 universities for mathematics in the 2026 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, which is dominated by universities in the United States and Europe. Published by ShanghaiRanking, the ranking evaluates 500 universities worldwide based on mathematics research performance across five broad areas: world-class faculty, research output, research quality, research impact and international collaboration.Kyoto University ranked 16th globally with a total score of 249.7, supported by strong performances in faculty and research output. Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall and the Camphor Tree in Kyoto, Japan, July 2021. Photo by the university fanpage The top five positions went to Princeton University in the United States, Paris-Saclay University in France, the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S., and the University of Cambridge in the U.K.Kyoto University was followed by Imperial College London in 17th place, Université Paris Cité in 18th, the University of Toronto in 19th and Columbia University in 20th.The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel ranked 24th, making it the next-highest institution in the ranking from Asia, followed by China's Tsinghua University in 26th place, right after Yale .Seven other Chinese universities ranked between 32nd (Peking University) and 52nd positions, while the National University of Singapore followed at 56th.China and Singapore have emerged as rising stars in Asian higher education, with their universities climbing global rankings in recent years.The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025, conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), ranked students in China the world's top performers in mathematics and science, as Singapore came second in both subjects.The ShanghaiRanking focuses on mathematics research rather than overall university performance. ShanghaiRanking uses data from 2020 to 2024 and requires universities to have published at least 100 mathematics papers during that period to qualify.Bibliometric data are drawn from Web of Science and InCites. Indicators include papers published in first-quartile (Q1) journals, category-normalized citation impact and internationally co-authored papers.Category-normalized citation impact compares the citations received by a university's papers with the average for publications in the same subject, year and publication type.As a result, the ranking emphasizes research strength and influence rather than undergraduate teaching quality, student experience, or graduate employment. Its results should therefore be interpreted as a measure of mathematics research performance, not a comprehensive assessment of mathematics degree programs.ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects assesses universities worldwide across 57 subjects in the natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences.Top 20 universities for mathematics according to ShanghaiRanking: Rank University Country Score 1 Princeton University United States 407.1 2 Paris-Saclay University France 359.3 3 University of Oxford United Kingdom 345.8 4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology United States 332.0 5 University of Cambridge United Kingdom 294.0 6 Sorbonne University United States 293.6 7 Stanford University United States 291.1 8 ETH Zurich Switzerland 279.6 9 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne Switzerland 279.1 10 New York University United States 277.9 11 University of Chicago United States 277.8 12 The University of Texas at Austin United States 262.7 13 University of California, Los Angeles United States 260.2 14 Harvard University United States 260.1 15 University of California, Berkeley United States 256.5 16 Kyoto University Japan 249.7 17 Imperial College London United Kingdom 249.1 18 Université Paris Cité France 243.6 19 University of Toronto Canada 242.3 20 Columbia University United States 240.8