Top Universities for Natural Sciences

The recently released QS World University Rankings by Subject features 520 of the top higher education institutions to study natural sciences. 

This year, the subject rankings are based on five indicators: academic and employer reputation, citations per paper, H-index citations (a way of measuring the productivity and published work of a scientist or scholar) and international research network. Learn more about the methodology behind the subject rankings. 

Read on as we discover the top universities in each region to study natural sciences. Alternatively, see the full list of universities in the natural sciences rankings.

The United States is home to 96 of the world’s top universities for natural science, with six universities in the global top 10. This includes the highest-ranked university in the world for this field, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT’s courses have a strong focus on experimental design and data evaluation, with all students participating in laboratory research. 

Outside the top 10, other strong US universities for natural sciences include University of Chicago (12th), University of California Los Angeles (14th) and Yale University (20th). 

Heading north, another 20 top natural sciences schools are found in Canada. These include three institutions in the global top 50: University of British Columbia (17th), University of Toronto (23rd) and McGill University (41st). There is one new Canadian entry this year: University of Manitoba (451-500). 

This year Europe has 230 universities offering courses in the natural sciences. The highest performing university in Europe is the UK’s Cambridge University in fourth. The flexibility of the University of Cambridge’s natural sciences courses make it possible to tailor your studies to your interests. 

The UK has 38 representatives in the natural sciences rankings in total, including three in the top 10. Outside of the top 10, six more universities feature in the top 100, including The University of Manchester (35th), The University of Edinburgh (=36th) and UCL (=36th). 

Germany performs well in the natural sciences rankings, with 35 schools featured among the world’s best in this subject area. Seven of these are in the global top 100. The best natural sciences courses in Germany arefound at Technical University of Munich (28th). The university’s interdisciplinary research includes topics from the fields of living environments, agriculture and forestry, food and nutrition as well as molecular health. 

Italy is home to 21 of the world’s top universities for natural sciences, with two schools featuring in the top 100: Sapienza University of Rome (44th) and Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna (88th). 

France has 22 entries in the ranking, with four universities in the global top 50: Sorbonne University (13th), Université PSL (14th), Université Paris-Saclay (19th) and Institut Polytechnique de Paris (26th). 

Spain also performs well with 12 entrants this year, including Universidad de Barcelona (65th). Meanwhile, The Netherlands’ 10 representatives are led by Delft University of Technology (56th). 

Neighbouring Belgium has seven top natural science schools. Switzerland also has seven including ETH Zurich in the top 10 and EPFL (16th). Another country with seven entries in this year’s subject rankings is Sweden. It’s top-ranked university, Stockholm University (74th) is the only one ranked within the global top 100. 

Austria and Czechia both have four top natural sciences schools with Austria’s University of Vienna (113th) ranked highest followed by Czechia’s Charles University (161st). Portugal and Finland both have six entries, with the University of Lisbon (146th) and University of Helinski (150th) ranked the highest in their respective countries. 

Hungary and Ireland both have four top natural sciences universities with Trinity College Dublin (197th) ranked highest. Denmark and Norway both have three.