U.S. News and World Report ranks Carolina 33rd among world’s top research universities

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is ranked 33rd among the world’s top 1,500 universities, according to the sixth annual U.S. News and World Report Best Global Universities rankings, a shift from 34th last year.

Among U.S. research universities included on the list, UNC-Chapel Hill placed 22nd overall and seventh among public campuses.

The ranking builds on U.S. News and World Report’s widely cited Best Colleges rankings, which have rated U.S. universities and colleges over the past 30 years. The Best Global Universities ranking provides a global context for U.S. research schools, evaluating institutions worldwide from 81 countries using 13 indicators that measure reputation, research and academic collaboration. Data for the indicators is collected by Clarivate Analytics InCites.

Harvard University tops the magazine’s list, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Oxford.

The Best Global Universities ranking also provided rankings in 11 subject areas. UNC-Chapel Hill performed exceptionally well in the health, medical and life science fields. Carolina garnered second in the world (second in the U.S.) for pharmacology and toxicology and eighth in the world (seventh in the U.S.) for social science and public health.

UNC-Chapel Hill also earned the following worldwide rankings in these subject areas:

• Biology and biochemistry: 42nd (24th in the U.S.)
• Chemistry: 64th (25th in the U.S.)
• Clinical medicine: 23rd (17th in the U.S.)
• Economics and business: 71st (34th in the U.S.)
• Environment/ecology: 69th (26th in the U.S.)
• Immunology: 25th (16th in the U.S.)
• Microbiology: 9th (8th in the U.S.)
• Molecular biology and genetics: 24th (18th in the U.S.)
• Psychiatry/psychology: tied for 21^st (12th in the U.S.)