The world's best universities announced: None from Turkey made the top 500

The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has published its 2026 "World's Best Universities" list, in which 21,291 universities from 95 countries were evaluated. The research ranked the world's 2,000 most successful higher education institutions.

The CWUR ranking was created under four main headings: quality of education, alumni employability, faculty success, and research performance. In the research performance evaluation, indicators such as research output, high-quality publications, influence, and citations were taken into account.

47 UNIVERSITIES FROM TURKEY INCLUDED IN THE LIST

This year, 47 universities from Turkey managed to enter the ranking. However, there were no universities from Turkey in the top 500. Only 8 universities from Turkey were included in the top 1000.

Turkey's highest-ranked university was Hacettepe University at the 666th spot. It was followed by the following universities:

• Hacettepe University (666)
• Istanbul University (707)
• Ankara University (733)
• Middle East Technical University - METU (736)
• Boğaziçi University (785)
• Istanbul Technical University (813)
• Marmara University (939)
• Koç University (989)

TURKISH UNIVERSITIES OUTSIDE THE TOP 1000

The Turkish universities ranked after the top 1000 in the CWUR list are as follows:

• Ege University (1052)
• Çukurova University (1106)
• Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa (1127)
• Bilkent University (1140)
• Gazi University (1151)
• Yıldız Technical University (1191)
• Dokuz Eylül University (1206)
• Erciyes University (1265)
• Gaziantep University (1289)
• Atatürk University (1351)
• Istanbul Bilgi University (1378)
• University of Health Sciences (1397)
• Istanbul Aydın University (1438)
• Akdeniz University (1446)
• Mersin University (1448)
• Karadeniz Technical University (1494)
• Uludağ University (1506)
• TOBB University of Economics and Technology (1515)
• Izmir Institute of Technology (1532)
• Bahçeşehir University (1553)
• Fırat University (1559)
• Necmettin Erbakan University (1588)
• Adıyaman University (1612)
• Selçuk University (1633)
• Kafkas University (1653)
• Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University (1688)
• Sabancı University (1700)
• Ondokuz Mayıs University (1708)
• Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University (1716)
• Özyeğin University (1773)
• Kocaeli University (1787)
• Sakarya University (1790)
• Eskişehir Osmangazi University (1809)
• Bingöl University (1854)
• Süleyman Demirel University (1872)
• Giresun University (1878)
• Istanbul Medeniyet University (1939)
• Sinop University (1986)
• Gebze Technical University (1992)

HARVARD AT THE TOP

In the CWUR evaluation, Harvard University, which received full points in all indicators, was chosen as the best university in the world.

The universities in the top 10 were ranked as follows:

• Harvard University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Stanford University
• Cambridge University
• Oxford University
• Princeton University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Columbia University
• Yale University
• University of Chicago

News Source: 12punto