Harvard Dethroned as Zhejiang Takes Top Spot

On June 10, Springer Nature released The Nature Index 2026 Research Leaders, revealing the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural sciences, health sciences, applied sciences, and social sciences, based on their output in Nature Index journals in 2025.

The 2026 Research Leaders are based on Nature Index data from January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2025. The dataset for the 2026 Research Leaders includes 125,385 primary research articles across seven subject areas.

From the perspective of leading academic institutions, nine of the world’s top ten universities are from China, up from eight last year. Among the top 100, 53 universities are Chinese. China is increasingly dominating high-quality research output.

Specifically, Zhejiang University has surpassed Harvard University to become the global leader. This is the first time since 2015 that Harvard has lost its top position worldwide.

Alongside Zhejiang, other Chinese universities that made significant progress in 2025 institutions overall include Sichuan University in Chengdu, which entered the top 10 in tenth place with a Share of 880.9, up from 16th in last year’s ranking. Fudan University in Shanghai follows closely, ranking 11th with a Share of 872.5, up from 12th.

Among the fastest-rising academic institutions, Shanghai Jiao Tong University recorded the largest increase in Share between 2024 and 2025, at 243.2, followed by Zhejiang University and Sichuan University.

In contrast, Stanford University in California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the United States’ second- and third-ranked institutions, slipped further in 2025. Stanford dropped one place to 14th, and MIT fell three places to 21st.

Japan has the highest-ranked institution outside China, Europe, and the United States — the University of Tokyo, in 27th place — followed by Canada, with the University of Toronto in 48th place.

Meanwhile, the Research Leaders tables rank countries and territories according to their contributions to articles published in journals tracked by Nature Index. The top ten are China, the United States of America (USA), Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), Japan, France, South Korea, India, Canada, and Italy.

China’s contribution rose by 22% between 2024 and 2025, far ahead of the rest of the top ten, extending the country’s lead at the top of the ranking. According to Nature Index’s annual rankings, China has continued its steep rise in research output, but there is growing evidence that other East Asian countries are also challenging major research nations in Europe and North America.

Japan and South Korea, ranked fifth and seventh respectively, each posted nearly 10% growth in output according to a metric called Share, which tracks author affiliations on research articles. This represents a larger increase than higher-ranked Western peers such as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom (see “Relative measures”).