New Delhi: The prestigious Harvard University has slipped to third place in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2025 in the Science category. The first and the second place are occupied by China's Zhejiang and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Barring the third rank, the top nine positions are dominated by Chinese universities. 

The CWTS Leiden Ranking is an online platform that shares important insights into the scientific performance of over 1,500 major universities across the world. The Leiden Ranking is produced by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. 

The first CWTS Leiden rankings have been published for 2006-2009 time period. The initial rankings show the domination of universities from the United States with Harvard University topping the list. The second rank was occupied by University of Toronto and the third by University of Michigan. During this period, the top ten positions were majorly dominated by universities from the United States. 

Moreover, six prominent universities from the US that were in the top 10 during 2006-2009 time period are nowhere in the top 15 list now. These universities included the University of Michigan, the University of California-Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins, the University of Washington-Seattle, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University.

Harvard university was first replaced by Chinese Zhejiang University during 2019-2022 time period. Harvard slipped again to the third place in the next ranking for the 2020-2023 time period. 

Harvard University from the United States dominated the top for over a decade until 2018-2021 time period.

Among Indian universities, VIT occupies the top position. IIT Kharagpur ranks second, followed by IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras. 

The Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition is based on data from the Web of Science database. The CWTS Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition offers information about the scientific performance of over universities worldwide. 

Source: NDTV