Editions
Every published version of the World University Rankings 2026 method, newest first. Each version’s results stay downloadable. The About page describes the method and its sources.
| Version | Published | What changed | Universities ranked | Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| v3.4 current | 25 Oct 2026 | US graduate earnings are compared within the same subjects, from the College Scorecard’s field-of-study data; Australia’s field-adjusted salaries were built but are shown as context only (Amendment 17). | 2,583 | CSV |
| v3.3 | 24 Oct 2026 | 305 more universities ranked from newly collected student counts, with each country’s in-country measures extended to them; a measure also counts as covering a country when the universities it covers hold half of the ranked students; the retraction threshold is fixed at the v3.2 value (Amendment 16). | 2,583 | CSV |
| v3.2 | 21 Oct 2026 | Face-validity audit: alumni counts no longer tie at a ceiling, US Rhodes Scholars are counted per student, a value based on fewer than 500 graduates can’t be a university’s only in-country measure, merged universities inherit their predecessors’ alumni, research quality is capped at the median above the retraction threshold, and graduate-dominant institutions are excluded (Amendment 15). | 2,278 | CSV |
| v3.1 | 20 Oct 2026 | The mean UCAS entry tariff of entrants (Department for Education, England only) is added to the UK selectivity measures (Amendment 14). | 2,280 | CSV |
| v3.0 | 19 Oct 2026 | Official in-country data for 15 more countries: Brazil, Russia, Spain, Poland, Italy, Chile, Sweden, Portugal, Colombia, Ukraine, Greece, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Indonesia; the slope used to estimate the remaining countries is refitted from 0.43 to 0.36 (Amendment 13). | 2,280 | CSV |
| v2.9 | 14 Oct 2026 | Japan gets an admissions measure from Kawaijuku’s entrance-difficulty borders, the one non-official input in the ranking (Amendment 12). | 2,280 | CSV |
| v2.8 | 13 Oct 2026 | Official in-country data for Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Turkey and Ireland (Amendment 10), with the audit corrections to the unpublished v2.7: shrinkage per university, minimum sample sizes, a single-field rule and refreshed student counts (Amendment 11). | 2,280 | CSV |
| v2.6 | 10 Oct 2026 | Expanded edition: the ranking extends from the Research Index universities to every profiled university with a student count; citation shares of universities below the Research Index threshold are shrunk toward their group median; affiliating-scope and graduate-dominant exclusions (Amendments 8–9). | 2,287 | CSV |
Versions 2.5 and 2.7 were computed but never published. Each CSV holds the rank, 90% rank range and score of every ranked university in that version.