The University of Helsinki has dropped out of the world’s top 100 universities in the 2026 Shanghai Ranking, falling from 94th place last year to the 101–150 group.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, known as the Shanghai Ranking, gives individual positions only to the first 100 institutions. Universities below that level appear in ranking bands.
The result marks a decline from the University of Helsinki’s position over the past two years. It ranked 99th in 2024 and 94th in 2025. Its highest position was 56th in both 2016 and 2017.
The university has ranked among the world’s top 100 for most of the period since the ranking started in 2003.
Despite the latest fall, Helsinki remains Finland’s highest-ranked university. Seven Finnish universities made the ranking of 1,000 research universities this year.
The University of Turku ranked in the 301–400 group, improving from 401–500 last year. Aalto University and the University of Oulu both placed in the 401–500 group.
Tampere University and the University of Eastern Finland ranked 501–600. Eastern Finland moved up from the 601–700 group recorded last year.
The University of Jyväskylä reached the 601–700 group.
Six Finnish universities did not make the top 1,000. They were the University of Lapland, LUT University, Hanken School of Economics, University of the Arts Helsinki, University of Vaasa and Åbo Akademi University, according to Ilta-Sanomat.
Finland’s results place its universities behind several Nordic institutions at the top of the ranking. The University of Copenhagen was the highest-ranked Nordic university at 34th place. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute ranked 41st, while Uppsala University took 94th place.
Harvard University retained first place in the global ranking. It has held the position since the ranking began in 2003. Stanford University came second and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked third.
Eight of the world’s top 10 universities are in the United States and two are in Britain. US institutions also accounted for 14 of the top 20 places.
The Shanghai Ranking focuses on research performance rather than teaching experience or student satisfaction. Its indicators include Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals awarded to alumni and researchers, papers published in selected research journals and the number of highly cited researchers.
The ranking was first published in 2003 and has been maintained by the independent ShanghaiRanking Consultancy since 2009.
HT
