2025 Shanghai Ranking: Université Paris-Saclay is France’s leading university and remains in the global top 20
On 15 August 2025, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy published its Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Ranked 13th in the world, and the leading university in France and Continental Europe, Université Paris-Saclay has once again confirmed its position as a world-class research intensive university.
For the sixth year in a row since it was first established in 2020, Université Paris-Saclay has been ranked in the top 20 of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). This token of international recognition is a testimony to the quality of the university’s research and a result of the consistent hard work carried out by the researchers and staff working in its 220 laboratories and more broadly within its community.
Published for the first time in 2003, the Shanghai ranking recognises the world’s top 1,000 universities based on six criteria, including the number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of Highly Cited Researchers and the number of articles published in the scientific journals Nature and Science. Université Paris-Saclay has five Nobel Prize winners, including Alain Aspect who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022, and 11 Fields Medal winners, including Hugo Duminil-Copin who was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022, as well as 24 Highly Cited Researchers.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities is one of three major international rankings which are frequently consulted by students and researchers. This recent performance confirms the university’s position both in subject-based and general rankings, and is coherent with its performance in two other major international rankings: 64th in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2025 and 70th in the QS World University Rankings 2026.
While the Shanghai Ranking is primarily based on criteria linked to the quality and reputation of the university’s research and related innovation, Université Paris-Saclay also plays a crucial role in the education and training of current and future citizens, through full-time academic and lifelong learning programmes. Its vast and varied range of disciplines allows it to fully carry out its three main missions: research, education and innovation, confirming its role as a key societal player in its own right. The international recognition provided by the ARWU acts as a guarantee of quality, not only for the laboratories that the university supervises or co-supervises, but also for its students and graduates, who can take pride in the national and international reputation associated with their university and degree.
“By bringing together universities, grandes écoles and national research organisations, Université Paris-Saclay was created around a shared ambition: to combine the strengths of its members to create a leading scientific and academic cluster. Five years later, this unique model in France is now recognised in Europe and around the world. This is demonstrated by the many partnerships made over the past year, including the signing of a strategic partnership agreement with Université de Montréal in November, which included the creation of a joint seed fund; collaborations which were finalised with Brazilian universities in December; and more recently, the signing of the Entente CordIAle Paris-Saclay – Oxford & Cambridge AI Initiative in July – a Franco-British strategic partnership agreement to advance artificial intelligence for science, the economy and society,” said Camille Galap, President of Université Paris-Saclay.