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Find the most influential colleges and universities in the world in nearly 25 academic disciplines

Find brilliant thinkers for your research papers and bibliographies. Using our proprietary AI program, we have ranked everyone in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Schematic Scholar, and CrossRef based on the number of citations, publications, and academically relevant web presence. This is how we find the most influential people in the world.

We then gather all the faculty and alumni associated with a college or university and attribute the people’s influence to their schools. Hence, the most influential schools are those that employ and graduate the most influential faculty and alumni.

Students and parents now have the easiest and fastest way to find colleges and universities with histories of impacting the world through their scholarship. If you ever wanted to find schools that have the most influence in engineering or in literature, you now can!

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If you are searching for your ideal college , our Build Your Own College Rankings tool has more options to help you find the right school for your degree. Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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List of the most influential schools for the years 2000 – 2022

The present-day University of Munich traces its roots to a fifteenth-century institution founded in the town of Ingolstadt by Duke Ludwig IX of Bavaria-Landshut. The school was moved to the town of Landshut in 1800 by King Maximilian I of Bavaria, when Ingolstadt was threatened by invading French armies during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1802, it was given its present official name of “Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU)” in recognition of its first and second founding fathers. Finally, in 1826 another Ludwig—King Ludwig I of Bavaria—relocated the university yet again to its present location in the Bavarian capital city of Munich.

The origins of Imperial College London (ICL) can be traced back to the Royal College of Chemistry, founded in 1845. In 1853, this school was merged with the Royal School of Mines, established two years previously. The modern Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ICL’s official name) was established by royal charter in 1907 through merger of the Royal School of Mines with the Royal College of Chemistry and the City and Guilds College. Imperial College Medical School was formed in 1988 through merger with St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School (itself dating back to 1845), while in 2004 a brand-new Imperial College Business School opened its doors.

George Yancy ranks among our Top Influential Philosophers Today. University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) traces its roots to the Pittsburgh Academy, a preparatory school founded in 1787, when Pittsburgh was still a frontier outpost. Defined in this way, Pitt is the oldest continuously chartered educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains. The city of Pittsburgh itself has an interesting history. It was founded in 1758 in conjunction with the construction of Fort Pitt, near the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River. This act of founding occurred dur...

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The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn is an elite public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III, as the linear successor of the which was founded in 1777. The University of Bonn offers many undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects and has 544 professors. The University of Bonn is a member of the German U15 association of major research-intensive universities in Germany and has the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities...

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Sorbonne University is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as one of the first universities in Europe.

The University of Maryland is a system comprising 15 campuses. The system has a rather complicated history. The oldest component of the system is the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), which traces its roots to the Maryland College of Medicine, founded in 1807. In 1812, the medical college was rechartered as the University of Maryland. In 1920, the University of Maryland System was created through a merger between the Baltimore school—renamed the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB)—with a pre-existing agricultural school that then became the flagship campus of the overall system under the name of the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP).

Purdue University was founded in 1869 with substantial financing provided by industrialist John Purdue. Its purpose was to train students in agriculture and engineering. The school officially opened for business in 1874 and grew quickly. By the end of the nineteenth century, Purdue had been organized into five schools: agriculture, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, and pharmacy. Later, schools of education and home economics were added. An early attempt at creating a medical school was later abandoned. In other respects, Purdue was spectacularly successful. By 1925 the university was home to the largest number of engineering students in the US.

The University of British Columbia (UBC) was founded in 1908. For the first several decades of its existence, the university’s activities were modest in scope. In 1925 a bold program to transform UBC into a modern research university was put into effect. At this time the main campus was transferred from the Fairview neighborhood just south of downtown Vancouver, to a larger campus at Point Grey about six miles to the west. Today, UBC is the third-largest university in Canada. In addition to the main campus there is a satellite campus in the city of Kelowna. In all, the UBC student body tops 66,000 souls.

The Paris Institute of Political Studies , commonly referred to as Sciences Po Paris or Sciences Po , is a French grande école and grand établissement located in Paris, with additional campuses in Dijon, Le Havre, Menton, Nancy, Poitiers and Reims. Sciences Po is a specialised institute for the study of social sciences, offering courses and research in political science, history, economics, law, and sociology.

Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) was founded in 1820. It is the flagship campus of the IU System. The university is divided into 16 schools. Together, they offer some 550 undergraduate and graduate degree programs and professional certificates, of which the business and communications programs are among the most sought-after. IUB’s online program offers more than 150 degree programs. IUB is associated with nine Nobel laureates, namely: Other distinguished IUB-connected individuals include the following: IUB is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).

King's College London is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. It is one of the oldest university-level institutions in England. In the late 20th century, King's grew through a series of mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology , the Institute of Psychiatry , the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospit...

Christopher Jackson ranks among our Top Influential Earth Scientists Today. Jamie Peck ranks among our Top Influential Earth Scientists Today. Brian Cox ranks among our Top Influential Physicists Today. With more than 40,000 students, Manchester is the largest single-site university in the United Kingdom. While it traces its roots back to the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1824, the present university was formed by the merger of University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and Victoria University of Manchester in 2004. Manchester can boast of some 25 No...

Ohio State University (OSU) was founded in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. Three years later, in 1873, the new school opened its doors to a small group of 24 students. In 1878, the first class of just six students graduated. From these modest beginnings, the school grew rapidly. In recognition of the increasing demand for course offerings of wider scope, the same year that the first degrees were granted (1878) the Ohio state legislature changed the school’s name to its present form. Over time, OSU opened five regional campuses—in the towns of Newark, Lima, Marion, Mansfield, and Wooster.

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Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) was founded in 1855 as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania. In 1862, the school’s name was changed to the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania. In 1874 it was changed once again, this time to Pennsylvania State College, at which time a classical liberal arts curriculum was married to the agricultural training program. In 1953, under the presidency of Milton S. Eisenhower—the brother of former US Army Supreme Commander and then–US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower—the college was upgraded to Pennsylvania State University. With 23 campuses statewide...

The University of Florida (UF) traces its roots back to East Florida Seminary, which was founded in 1853 in the town of Ocala. The seminary, which was the first publicly supported institution of higher learning in the state, relocated to the city of Gainesville in 1858. Another public institution, the Florida Agricultural College, was established in Lake City in 1884, while the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School was established in 1893. In 1895, a fourth public institution, the South Florida Military and Educational Institute, was established in Bartow. Its name was changed to South Florida Military College in 1903.

National Taiwan University is a national university located in Taipei, Taiwan. NTU has been considered the most comprehensive university on the island. It consists of 11 colleges, 56 departments, 133 graduate institutes, over 60 research centers and a school of professional education and continuing studies.

The Technical University of Munich is a public research university in Munich, with additional campuses in Garching, Freising, Heilbronn, Straubing, and Singapore. A technical university that specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and the applied and natural sciences, it is organized into 11 schools and departments, and supported by numerous research centers.

The University of North Carolina (UNC) system is a large network of 16 public universities with a total student enrollment of around 240,000 souls. The oldest member of the UNC system is the flagship campus in the small, centrally located town of Chapel Hill. Founded in 1789, UNC-Chapel Hill is about the 24th-oldest university in the US (depending on who is doing the counting) and is often considered to be the very oldest of all the public universities. UNC-Chapel Hill comprises 13 professional schools, including the Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

The wave of expansion of Homo sapiens out of its African birthplace reached the continent of Australia around 40,000 years ago, or more. However, the first visit of Europeans to the land down under did not occur until 1606, when the Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon made landfall at what is now the town of Weipa on the western shore of the Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. Several sightings and landings by other Dutch, as well as Spanish, explorers occurred over the next century and a half or so. However, it was not until 1770 that Captain James Cook claimed for the British crown the re...

Dating all the way back to the 1891 founding of a small, vocational institution called the Anna Blake School, the University of California, Santa Barbara is now a full-blown public research university, and among the most influential schools in the world. The Anna Blake school was initially established for the purpose of teaching trades and skills, particularly home economics and industrial arts. In 1909, it became the Santa Barbara State Normal School, focusing on teacher training. By 1921, it had grown into the Santa Barbara State College. Finally, in 1944, after much lobbying and debate, the institution became the third member of the University of California System, where it remains today.

Goethe University is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt. The original name was Universität Frankfurt am Main. In 1932, the university's name was extended in honour of one of the most famous native sons of Frankfurt, the poet, philosopher and writer/dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The university currently has around 45,000 students, distributed across four major campuses within the city.

The University of Copenhagen is a public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala University, and ranks as one of the top universities in the Nordic countries and Europe.

The University of Göttingen was established under the auspices of Georg August, Elector of Hanover, who was at the same time King George II of Great Britain and Ireland. Born in Hanover in 1683, Georg August acceded to both the Electorship and the British throne upon his father George I’s death in 1727. The last of the British monarchs to be born outside of the UK, Georg August’s ties to his native region of Lower Saxony remained strong. As that Land (state or province) did not possess a university at the time of Georg August’s accession to his twin titles, the new Elector and King made it a p...

The University of Arizona (UA) was founded in 1885, when Arizona was still a territory (it entered the Union in 1912). Because there were no high schools in the Arizona Territory, UA also offered college-preparatory classes for the first 23 years of its existence. Today, UA operates 19 separate schools and colleges—including the James E. Rogers College of Law and the University of Arizona College of Medicine (with campuses in both Tucson and Phoenix)—in addition to numerous institutes and centers. Among the latter, one of the most noteworthy is the cutting-edge Center for Consciousness Studies.

Uppsala University is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university motto is "".

The University of Tehran is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching profile, UT has been nicknamed "The Mother University of Iran" . In international rankings, UT has been ranked as one of the best universities in the Middle East and is among the top universities of the world. It is also the premier knowledge producing institute among all OIC countries. The university offers more than 111 bachelor's degree programs, 177 master's degree programs, and 156 PhD. programs. Many of t...

The University of São Paulo is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best university in Ibero-America, and holds a high reputation among world universities, being ranked 100 worldwide in reputation by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The USP is involved in teaching, research and university extension in all areas of knowledge, offering a broad range of courses.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the biggest in terms of enrollment. UNAM's main campus in Mexico City, known as Ciudad Universitaria , is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was designed by some of Mexico's best-known architects of the 20th century and hosted the 1968 Summer Olympic Games. Murals in the main campus were painted by some of the most recognized artists in Mexican history, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. With acceptance rates usually below 10%, UNAM is also known for its competitive admission process.

Stockholm University is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, it is one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities .

Michigan State University (MSU) was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the US. Its original curriculum elevated the study of the natural sciences over the Classical languages and humanities, which was quite unusual at the time. The state reorganized the curriculum just six years later, in 1861, restoring a more traditional balance between the sciences and the humanities. At this time, the school’s name was changed to State Agricultural College. The following year, in 1862, the first of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts was passed by the US Congress under the leadership of President Lincoln.

This university has a fascinating pedigree. It was originally founded by Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm III, in consultation with three great German Enlightenment thinkers: the philologist and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, the philosopher J.G. Fichte, and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. Originally known simply as the University of Berlin, for most of its existence up until the aftermath of World War II, it was officially known as the Friedrich Wilhelm University. The site of the university lay in the central, Mitte neighborhood of the city, and in the aftermath of the war it unfortunately found itself just inside the Soviet sector—and thus, after 1961, just east of the Berlin Wall.

The University of Melbourne is a public research university founded in 1853, the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Australia. The founding of the university by the State of Victoria was facilitated by the discovery of gold in 1851, and the ensuing “Victorian Gold Rush.” In some years, the Victorian gold fields were second in output worldwide only to California’s. Hence, the State of Victoria became quite prosperous, attracting immigrants from all over the world. The state-financed University of Melbourne also grew quickly and soon achieved a remarkable degree of academic excellence.

The Complutense University of Madrid is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 , it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of Pozuelo de Alarcón. It is named after the ancient Roman settlement of Complutum, now an archeological site in Alcalá de Henares, just east of Madrid.

The University of Notre Dame (ND) was founded in 1842 by Edward Sorin, a Catholic priest of the religious order of the Congregation of Holy Cross (Congregatio a Sancta Cruce—CSC). ND was originally a primary and secondary school. Two years later, in 1844, the school received its college charter from the General Assembly of Indiana (which had been a state since 1816). It awarded its first degree in 1849. Today, ND is still run by the CSC, although the faculty members and the student body are now recruited from far beyond the confines of the Catholic Church. ND’s transformation from a small Catholic college to a modern research university has been gradual but steady.

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The University of Helsinki is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available. In 2020, around 31,600 students were enrolled in the degree programs of the university spread across 11 faculties and 11 research institutes.

The University of Hong Kong is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the first university established by the British in East Asia.

Jennifer Saul ranks among our Top Influential Anthropologists Today. Bruce Schneier ranks among our Top Influential Computer Scientists Today. The University of Rochester traces its roots to the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, founded in 1817 in the town of Hamilton in central New York state. Its primary function was to train Baptist clergymen. In 1823, the educational society changed its name to the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution. In 1846, the Hamilton Institution created a new collegiate division, under the name of Madison University, for the purpose of providing its students with a broader and more-modern, non-theological curriculum.

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The University of Buenos Aires is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigious universities of Ibero-America and the world. It has educated 17 Argentine presidents, produced four of the country's five Nobel Prize laureates, and is responsible for approximately 40% of the country's research output. The QS World University Rankings currently places the UBA at number 66 in the world.

The Weizmann Institute of Science is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only postgraduate degrees in the natural and exact sciences.

Samuel Moyn ranks among our Top Influential Historians Today. Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), which is located in an unincorporated area just west of the St. Louis city limits, was founded in 1853. WUSTL’s student body is highly diversified, including individuals from all 50 states and some 120 foreign countries. The university is divided into seven undergraduate, graduate, and professional colleges and schools, which together offer nearly 1900 courses leading to more than 90 different academic degrees. Among WUSTL’s most popular programs are those in engineering, in biological and biomedical sciences, and in social sciences.

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Waseda University, abbreviated as , is a private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) was founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, in what was then the British-controlled Straits Settlements colony. NUS—like the nation of which it is a part—has a long and complex history In 1912, the British king, Edward VII, provided a permanent endowment for the new medical school. In gratitude, the administration changed the school’s name the following year, to the King Edward VII Medical School. The medical school grew rapidly, requiring the expansion of its academic curriculum. This change wa...

Osaka University, abbreviated as Handai, is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's former Imperial Universities and a Designated National University listed as a "Top Type" university in the Top Global University Project. The university is often ranked among the top three public universities in Japan, along with the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. It is ranked third overall among Japanese universities and 75th worldwide in the 2022 QS World University Rankings.

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the country. The Technion is ranked as the top university in both Israel and the Middle East, and in the top 100 universities in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2019.

The University of Hamburg is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System , the Hamburg Colonial Institute , and the Academic College . The main campus is located in the central district of Rotherbaum, with affiliated institutes and research centres distributed around the city-state.

The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen , is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellence Universities. The University of Tübingen is especially known as a centre for the study of plant biology, medicine, law, archeology, ancient cultures, philosophy, theology, and religious studies as well as more recently as center of excellence for artificial intelligence. The university's noted alumni include presidents, EU Commissioners, and judges of the Federal Constitutional Court.

Despite the word “college” in its name, Dartmouth is a full-scale, PhD-granting, private, research university. Indeed, it is an official member of the Ivy League, and is the fourteenth-oldest university in the US, founded only five years after Brown and 15 years after Columbia. Located in the small town of Hanover in the far western part of central New Hampshire, the Dartmouth campus abuts the Connecticut River, which forms the entire border between New Hampshire and Vermont. The university was founded by Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregationalist minister who was involved in missionary work with the Native American population.

The University of Warwick (pronounced “Warrick”) was founded in 1965 near the West Midlands market town of the same name, which lies approximately halfway between Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon, and has a population of a little over 30,000. However, the university campus does not lie in Warwick proper, but rather in a rural area to the north of the old town center, virtually on the outskirts of Coventry. Despite the youth of its university, Warwick itself has a venerable heritage. Its most famous landmark, Warwick Castle, was built by William the Conqueror in 1068, while Warwick School—an i...

The University of Zurich is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine which go back to 1525, and a new faculty of philosophy.

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