The "Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)", which was first published in 2003 and updated annually, has gained international reputation. Consultation reports on strategies for building world-class universities and science policies, which are provided to Chinese governments on a regular basis, have attracted national attention.
 

Top 25 World Universities

1 Harvard University

2 University of California, Berkeley

3 Stanford University

4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

5 University of Cambridge

6 California Institute of Technology

7 Princeton University

8 Columbia University

9 University of Chicago

10 University of Oxford

11 Yale University

12 Cornell University

13 University of California, Los Angeles

14 University of California, San Diego

15 University of Pennsylvania

16 University of Washington

17 University of Wisconsin - Madison

18 The Johns Hopkins University

18 University of California, San Francisco

20 The University of Tokyo

21 University College London

22 University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

23 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

24 Kyoto University

25 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign