Peking and Tsinghua achieve top rankings in university disciplines

According to the recently released 2026 ShanghaiRanking's Best Chinese Disciplines, Peking University and Tsinghua University continue to be the top-ranked in China.

The evaluation, conducted by the higher education consultancy ShanghaiRanking, highlights that 336 disciplines from 118 universities have been recognized as top disciplines nationwide. Peking University leads with 25 top disciplines, followed by Tsinghua University with 21. Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University each have 15 top disciplines, tying for third place. Zhejiang University ranks fifth with 13 top disciplines, and Renmin University of China is close behind with 12.

When looking at the total number of ranked disciplines, Sun Yat-sen University comes out on top with 64 disciplines. Zhejiang University and Tsinghua University follow with 61 and 60 disciplines, respectively. Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Wuhan University are tied for fourth place, each with 56 ranked disciplines. Jilin University has 55 disciplines on the list, while Peking University and Sichuan University each have 54. Shandong University rounds out the list with 52 ranked disciplines.

The ranking uses the Graduate Education Discipline Catalog (2022) standards issued by the State Council's Academic Degrees Committee and the Ministry of Education. The 2026 ranking features 100 first-level disciplines and 5 professional degree categories.

This year, two new disciplines were added: History of the Communist Party of China and Party Building and Remote Sensing Science and Technology. The ranking includes all universities with authorized graduate programs in these fields, listing the top 50 percent of schools. In total, 5,343 discipline entries from 531 universities made the list.

To match current views on high-level disciplines in Chinese universities, ShanghaiRanking defines the top 3 percent (or top 2) as "China's Top Disciplines" and the top 7 percent (or top 3) and top 12 percent (or top 4) as "China's First-Class Disciplines".

The ShanghaiRanking's Best Chinese Disciplines comes from a data monitoring platform that supports university discipline development. This system uses various key indicators of discipline competitiveness, such as talent cultivation, projects, achievements, academic papers, and high-level talent, to track and measure the performance and ranking of thousands of disciplines in Chinese universities.