For the fourth consecutive year, Sapienza University of Rome has been ranked at the top of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), published on August 15, 2025 by the independent organisation Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, placing it as the first and only Italian university in the 101-150 range.
‘For the fourth consecutive time, Sapienza confirms the prestige it has earned over the years in the international university scene,’ says Rector Antonella Polimeni, ‘achieving an important result for a large public university with a generalist vocation like ours, which is very different from models in English-speaking countries with much more substantial funding. The variety of disciplines and the excellence of research activities, which carry great weight in the ARWU ranking, are the driving forces behind Sapienza's excellent performance, which is the result of the commitment and work of a large academic community. Thank you everone!’

ARWU takes into account the top 1,000 universities worldwide out of more than 2,500 surveyed and approximately 18,000 estimated worldwide. There are six evaluation parameters: Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals awarded to former students (10%) or researchers from the individual university (20%), the number of highly cited researchers according to Clarivate Analytics (20%), publications in Nature and Science (20%), and citations of technological and social publications (20%). These parameters are then correlated with academic staff, providing an additional parameter of per capita productivity (10%). For the top 100 universities in the Shanghai ranking, the position and score according to the parameters used are specified. The others are divided into groups of 50-100. Globally, Harvard University has held the top spot in the rankings for 23 years, while Stanford University and MIT hold second and third place respectively. 2025 was another successful year for Sapienza in terms of international rankings. On March 12, 2025, the QS subject rankings once again placed our university in first place worldwide for Classics & Ancient History, and in first and second place in Italy for Arts & Humanities and Natural Sciences, respectively. In the 2026 QS World University Rankings, published on June 19, 2025, Sapienza achieved its best result to date, ranking 128th in the world and top among Italian generalist universities. Sapienza also confirmed its national leadership for the 14^(th) consecutive year, achieving 125^(th) position globally in the 2025 CWUR ranking, published on June 2, 2025.