Harvard University continues to take the first place in the 2013 list. The Top 10 universities are: Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Cambridge, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago and Oxford. In Continental Europe, ETH Zurich (20^th) in Switzerland takes first place and it becomes the first university in this region listed among the world Top 20 in the history of ARWU. Pierre & Marie Curie (37^th) in France overtakes Paris-Sud (39^th) as the second best university in Continental Europe. The best ranked universities in the Asia-Pacific region are the University of Tokyo (21^st) and Kyoto University (26^th) in Japan, and the University of Melbourne (56^th) in Australia.

The University of Groningen (92^nd) in Netherlands enters the Top 100 list for the first time. There are totally 11 universities breaking into the Top 500 list in 2013, among which King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, the University of Coimbra in Portugal, and the Catholic University of Korea in South Korea make their first appearance.

The Center for World-Class Universities also releases the 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Broad Subject Fields (ARWU-FIELD) and 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities by Subject Fields (ARWU-SUBJECT). Top 200 universities in five broad subject fields and in five selected subject fields are listed, where the best five universities are:

• Natural Sciences and Mathematics – Harvard, Berkeley, Caltech, Princeton and Cambridge
• Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences – MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UT Austin and UIUC
• Life and Agriculture Sciences – Harvard, Cambridge, MIT, UC San Francisco and Washington (Seattle)
• Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy – Harvard, UC San Francisco, Washington (Seattle), Johns Hopkins and Columbia
• Social Sciences – Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, Columbia and Berkeley
• Mathematics – Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, Cambridge and Pierre & Marie Curie
• Physics – Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Caltech and Princeton
• Chemistry – Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford, Cambridge and ETH Zurich
• Computer Science – Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton and Harvard
• Economics/Business – Harvard, Chicago, MIT, Stanford and Berkeley

The complete lists and detailed methodologies can be found at the Academic Ranking of World Universities website at http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/.

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU): Starting from 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world Top 500 universities annually based on a set of objective indicators and third-party data. ARWU has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy league table. ARWU adopts six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of Highly Cited Researchers, the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance. More than 1200 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 universities are published.

Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CWCU): CWCU is dedicated to the theoretical and policy study of World-Class Universities with a more than 25-year history. CWCU initiated the "International Conference on World-Class Universities" in 2005 and has organized this biennial event since then. The 5th International Conference on World-Class Universities (WCU-5) will be held on 3-6 November 2013 in Shanghai. It will again gather university presidents, government officials and leading scholars all over the world to discuss the successful experience, ongoing practices, challenges and strategies in building and managing World-Class Universities [Conference website]. CWCU endeavors to build databases of major research universities in the world and a clearinghouse of literature on World-Class Universities, and provides consultations for governments and universities.

ShanghaiRanking Consultancy: ShanghaiRanking Consultancy is a fully independent organization dedicating to research on higher education. It is the official publisher of the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Website: http://www.ShanghaiRanking.com/
Contact: Dr.Ying CHENG at pr@shanghairanking.com