Iran’s presence in the THE World University Rankings 2026 rises to 90 institutions, with 5 in the top 500 and 42 in the top 1000.
The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026 released in 2025 lists 90 Iranian institutions, up from 81 last year, signaling broader visibility for Iran’s higher education sector. National leaders Amirkabir University of Technology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, and Sharif University of Technology are placed in the 301–350 band globally. An additional 11 Iranian institutions appear as “reporter” status—those that submitted data but did not meet the minimum threshold for a global rank.
This year’s edition covers 2000+ institutions across 115 countries. By number of ranked institutions, Iran ranks seventh worldwide, the same position it held last year. Overall, 5 Iranian universities feature among the top 500, and 42 sit within the top 1000 (versus 5 and 41, respectively, in the previous edition).
At the global summit, University of Oxford leads the table, followed by MIT, Princeton, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, Imperial College London, UC Berkeley, and Yale (2–10).