Harvard is still churning out research, but the global leaderboard it once dominated now has a new country on top. In the latest Leiden Rankings, which track research volume and impact, China's Zhejiang University has edged into the No. 1 spot, with seven other Chinese institutions also in the top 10. Harvard, long the perennial leader, has slipped to third and is now the only American university near the top of the list, even though it produces more research than it did 20 years ago and still leads in highly cited papers, the New York Times reports. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is in second place, and the only other non-Chinese university in the top 10 is the University of Toronto, in 10th place.
"There is a big shift coming," said Phil Baty of Times Higher Education, a British rankings group, calling it a "new world order" in research dominance. The core issue isn't that US universities are publishing less; it's that China is expanding faster. Chinese institutions have poured money into labs, boosted output across fields like chemistry and environmental science, and pushed researchers to publish in English-language journals that drive global citations, the Times reports. Xi Jinping has tied scientific strength directly to geopolitical power, and Beijing has backed that with funding, new visas to lure foreign talent, and public celebration of ranking gains. In a parallel ranking built on a different database, Harvard returns to No. 1—but 12 of the next 13 spots still go to Chinese schools.
American universities, meanwhile, face headwinds at home. The Trump administration has moved to cut billions in federal research grants, restricted immigration, and framed parts of campus research culture as politicized. A federal judge recently ordered funding to resume for Harvard after a major cut, but the administration has pledged to limit future grants. International student arrivals to the US dropped 19% in August 2025 compared with a year earlier, raising concerns that top talent will go elsewhere.
Broader league tables that factor in reputation, finances, and selectivity still favor the US—Times Higher Education's 2026 list has seven American schools in the top 10—but farther down those rankings, US institutions are slipping as Chinese and other Asian universities climb. Richard Holmes, author of the University Ranking Newsletter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, blames a "relentless decline in academic standards in American higher education" that began in the 1980s. He says that with Chinese universities continuing to produce more high-quality papers in fields like physics, robotics, and AI, "the scientific world is about to face a dramatic shift in its center of gravity."
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