Teaching, research lead UW to rise in worldwide rankings
On the first day of fall semester, students fill a Sterling lecture hall for their first Math 221 class. Photo: Althea Dotzour
Strong performance in the categories of teaching and research environment helped the University of Wisconsin–Madison rise to 56th in the 2025 Times Higher Education World University Rankings released last week.
This marks a two-year surge for UW in the rankings, thanks also to the university’s patents and growing research expenditures.
“UW–Madison fosters a research environment that supports innovation and drives discovery,” says Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, UW–Madison vice chancellor for research. “As an institution, we also prioritize leveraging our research advances to help benefit society, as reflected by the high number of inventions patented by our researchers each year.”
The World University Rankings focus on three areas — research, impact and teaching — using five pillars supported by 18 performance indicators.
“We create university rankings to assess university performance on the global stage and to provide a resource for readers to understand the different missions and successes of higher education institutions,” says the Times Higher Education website.
Within the five pillars, UW ranked highest in teaching, at 43rd worldwide. That was supported by a 90.8 percentile ranking in institutional income, which “gives a broad sense of the infrastructure and facilities available to students and staff.”
UW ranked 54th in research environment, led by a 94.2 percentile ranking in research income. In the most recent data provided by the National Science Foundation, UW–Madison’s research expenditures topped $1.5 billion, a 10 percent increase, ranking it 8th among public and private universities surveyed.
Within the industry pillar, UW received a 100th percentile ranking for patents. According to the National Academy of Inventors, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation ranked 12th nationwide and 16th worldwide in number of U.S. Utility patents issued in 2023.
Times Higher Education also ranked universities in 11 specific subjects, in which UW ranked 17th in education, 25th in social sciences , 43rd in psychology, 44th in life sciences and 50th in physical sciences.
UW–Madison has ranked highly in a number of other recent rankings.