TEHRAN –The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2026 has placed 90 Iranian universities among the top Asian institutions, up from 85 universities in 2025.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026 judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.
Sharif University of Technology is placed first in the country, with a global ranking of 76, Borna news agency reported.
Amirkabir university of Technology (79), Iran University of Science and Technology (87) are ranked second and third.
Tehran University of Medical Science (111), University of Tehran (120), Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (131), Isfahan University of Technology (137), Tarbiat Modares University (162), Shiraz University of Technology (166), and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (154) are placed fourth to tenth in the country.
The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment) 24.5 percent, Research Environment (volume, income and reputation) 28 percent, Research Quality (citation impact, research strength, excellence and influence) 30 percent, International Outlook (staff, students and research) 7.5 percent, and Industry (income and patents) 10 percent.
The 2026 ranking includes 929 universities from 36 territories. China leads the rankings. India has the most represented institutions (128). Malaysia joins the top 40 for the first time and doubles its top 100 places, and Yemen has a university ranked for the first time.
Recent rankings
THE World University Rankings (WUR) 2026 placed 101 Iranian universities among the top universities in the world in 11 subject areas, compared to 81 universities in 10 subject areas in 2025.
These ten subject rankings include arts and humanities; business and economics; clinical and health; computer science; education; engineering; life sciences; physical sciences; psychology; social sciences, and Law.
To create the THE WUR 2026 list, THE’s data team drew on a comprehensive and growing database containing hundreds of thousands of data points on more than 3,100 global research universities, and employed a global Academic Reputation Survey of more than 108,000 leading scholars, who provided us with their expert views on the world’s leading universities.
In addition, it also analysed 174.9 million citations to 18.7 million academic publications (from Elsevier’s Scopus database) published over a five-year period between 2020 and 2024.
Amirkabir University of Technology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, and Sharif University of Technology, ranking 351–400 globally, were placed first in the country.
Iran University of Science and Technology, and University of Tehran were placed second, with a global ranking of 401–500.
Shiraz University of Technology, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences ranked 501–600 globally; they ranked third nationwide.
The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings placed 48 Iranian universities in the list of top universities in 2026, compared to 32 universities in 2025.
Published annually since 2009, the QS Asia University Rankings highlights the top universities in Asia each year.
University of Tehran (with a global ranking of 93) was placed first among Iranian universities, followed by Sharif University of Technology (ranking 142 globally) and Amirkabir University of Technology (ranking 169 globally), ISNA reported.
Iran University of Science and Technology (172), Isfahan University of Technology and University of Tabriz (212), Shahid Beheshti University (214), Shiraz University (241), Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (261), K.N. Toosi University of Technology (287), University of Isfahan (293) were ranked fourth to tenth.
The 11 indicators used to compile the QS Asia University Rankings are as follows: Academic reputation (30 percent), Employer reputation (20 percent), Faculty/student ratio (10 percent), International research network (10 percent), Citations per paper (10 percent) and papers per faculty (5 percent), Staff with a PhD (5 percent), Proportion of international faculty (2.5 percent) and proportion of international students (2.5 percent), Proportion of inbound exchange students (2.5 percent) and proportion of outbound exchange students (2.5 percent).
MT/MG
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