Each year, the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, presents a ranking list of the world's universities - the so-called Shanghai ranking, or ARWU – Academic Ranking of World Universities. It is one of the most prestigious global rankings of universities. The top 500 of the world's more than 20,000 universities can be found on the list, which is based on six indicators, scientific citations and the number of Nobel Prize winners.
United States dominates the list, with Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley at the top of the 15 American universities who ranks among the top 20. Oxford, Cambridge and University College London, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and the University of Tokyo are also found at top 20.
Stockholm University at place 81
Three Swedish universities are among the hundred best in the world. Karolinska institutet at place 44, University of Uppsala at 60 and Stockholm University at 81, to compare with 77 in 2015. Stockholm University has in the past ten years been ranked at 77-88 in the Shanghai ranking.
"Stockholm University is found, as in previous years, at third place in Sweden, following Karolinska institutet and Uppsala University, and is by far among the 100 highest ranking. Final placement depends on the weighting of a number of sub-indicators, some of which went up while others went down. As a whole however, the margin of error in the ranking system is greater than the numbers the university has gone down, says Vice-Chancellor Astrid Söderbergh Widding."