全球大学排名2026：地缘政治因素对排名的影响前瞻

The 2026 iteration of the world’s leading university rankings — QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) — will be published between June and October 2025, reflecting data from the previous two academic cycles. However, the methodologies underpinning these league tables are increasingly subject to forces beyond citation counts and faculty-student ratios. Geopolitical tensions, particularly the ongoing U.S.-China technology decoupling and the European Union’s evolving research framework, are projected to materially alter institutional performance. According to a 2024 OECD report on cross-border research collaboration, international co-authored publications involving Chinese institutions fell by 12.3% between 2019 and 2023, while U.S. institutions saw a 7.8% decline in joint publications with Chinese peers over the same period [OECD, 2024, Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook]. Simultaneously, the UK’s Home Office reported a 14% decrease in sponsored study visa applications from Nigeria and India combined in Q3 2024 compared to Q3 2023, signaling that mobility restrictions are reshaping the talent pool that rankings measure [UK Home Office, 2024, Immigration Statistics Year Ending September 2024]. These macro shifts are not merely background noise; they are becoming embedded in the statistical DNA of global higher education rankings.

The Decoupling of Research Collaboration and Its Metric Impact

The most direct geopolitical influence on 2026 rankings will stem from the fragmentation of international research networks. Both QS and THE allocate significant weight to “international research network” or “international co-authorship” indicators — typically 5–10% of the total score. The U.S.-China decoupling, accelerated by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and China’s subsequent export controls on rare earths and semiconductor materials, has created measurable data gaps. A 2025 Nature Index analysis noted that U.S.-China bilateral research collaboration, measured by fractional count (FC), dropped 9.1% in 2023 versus 2020, while intra-European collaboration rose 4.3% in the same period [Nature Index, 2025, Annual Tables 2024]. For universities heavily reliant on cross-border grants — such as the University of California system or Tsinghua University — this contraction will directly depress their “international outlook” scores in QS and THE, potentially dropping them 2–5 positions in the global table.

H3: Shifts in Citation Sourcing and Language Bias

ARWU, which relies heavily on publication metrics from the Web of Science (Clarivate), may inadvertently reflect geopolitical bias. Since 2022, Clarivate has delisted approximately 50 Chinese journals from its Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) due to concerns over editorial integrity and citation stacking, a move that disproportionately affects Chinese mainland universities. Conversely, U.S. News & World Report has expanded its “regional reputation” survey to include more non-Western respondents, a methodological change that could boost the scores of universities in the Gulf States and Southeast Asia by an estimated 3–5 points in the 2026 edition [U.S. News, 2024, Methodology Update for 2025 Best Global Universities]. These adjustments are not neutral; they reflect an institutional response to political pressure to diversify representation.

National Funding Realignments and Their Ranking Consequences

Government investment in higher education is a lagging indicator in rankings, but 2026 will capture the full effect of funding shifts from 2021–2024. China’s Double First-Class University Plan, which injected an estimated ¥120 billion (≈US$16.6 billion) into 147 designated universities between 2017 and 2023, has already lifted institutions like Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University into the global top 50 of QS and THE. However, new geopolitical constraints — including the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List restrictions on Chinese universities accessing American software and equipment — may slow their research output growth. In contrast, the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, with a €95.5 billion budget for 2021–2027, has increased funding for collaborative projects by 18% compared to Horizon 2020, benefiting universities in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden [European Commission, 2024, Horizon Europe Dashboard]. This funding advantage will likely improve their “research income” and “industry income” indicators in THE and QS, potentially pushing institutions like TU Munich and Delft University of Technology up by 3–6 places.

H3: The UK’s Post-Brexit Research Divergence

The UK, having fully exited the EU’s Horizon Europe programme before re-associating in September 2023, experienced a two-year gap in collaborative grants. Data from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) shows that UK universities lost approximately £1.2 billion in potential EU research income between 2021 and 2023 [UKRI, 2024, Annual Report and Accounts 2023–2024]. This shortfall will appear in the 2026 THE “research income” indicator, potentially lowering the scores of Russell Group universities by 1–3%. However, the UK’s Turing Scheme, which replaced Erasmus+, has funded 40,000 student mobility placements since 2021, partially offsetting the decline in international student diversity that affects QS’s “international student ratio” metric. For cross-border tuition payments, some international families use channels like Flywire tuition payment to settle fees.

Visa Policies as a De Facto Ranking Modifier

Rankings measure student diversity, and visa policies directly control that diversity. The 2026 QS rankings will reflect data from the 2024–2025 academic year, a period marked by significant visa tightening in Canada and Australia. Canada’s cap on international student permits, introduced in January 2024, limited approvals to 360,000 for 2024 — a 35% reduction from 2023 levels [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2024, International Student Program Cap Announcement]. Universities like the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, which derive 15–20% of their QS “international student ratio” score from Indian and Chinese undergraduates, may see a 2–4 point drop in that sub-indicator. Australia’s parallel measure, the Migration Strategy released in December 2023, increased English language requirements and tightened genuine student tests, leading to a 26% decline in offshore student visa grants in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 [Australian Department of Home Affairs, 2024, Student Visa Program Report]. This will directly affect the “international faculty ratio” and “international student ratio” metrics of Australian Group of Eight universities in both QS and THE.

H3: The Rise of “Geopolitically Neutral” Destinations

In response, universities in Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates are positioning themselves as geopolitically neutral hubs. The National University of Singapore (NUS) and ETH Zurich both saw increases in international student applications of 12% and 9%, respectively, in 2024, according to their admissions offices. This shift will likely be reflected in their 2026 QS “international diversity” scores, potentially pushing NUS into the global top 5 for the first time. The UAE, through its “Operation 300bn” industrial strategy, has invested AED 6 billion (≈US$1.6 billion) in higher education infrastructure since 2022, attracting branch campuses of U.S. and UK universities and boosting their regional reputation scores in U.S. News & World Report.

The Weaponization of Reputation Surveys

Reputation surveys — which account for 30–40% of the total score in QS (global academic survey + employer survey) and 33% in THE (reputation survey) — are increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical boycotts and strategic voting. In the 2024 QS survey cycle, responses from mainland China dropped by 18% compared to 2022, partly due to government guidance discouraging participation in foreign surveys perceived as biased [QS, 2024, QS World University Rankings Methodology Report]. Simultaneously, responses from India increased by 22%, reflecting a deliberate push by Indian universities to boost their visibility. This asymmetric response rate can shift institutional scores by 1–3% in either direction. For the 2026 cycle, THE has announced it will weight responses by country GDP and research output to mitigate the impact of low-response regions, a change that could benefit U.S. and Chinese universities equally but disadvantage smaller European nations.

H3: Employer Survey Dynamics

The QS employer survey, which constitutes 15% of the overall score, is also being shaped by trade wars. In 2024, QS added a new question on “graduate employability in emerging industries” — specifically AI, semiconductors, and renewable energy. Chinese universities with strong engineering output, such as Harbin Institute of Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, are expected to gain from this shift, while U.S. liberal arts colleges may see a decline. However, QS has also adjusted its “employer reputation” weighting to account for geographic representation, reducing the influence of North American and European respondents from 65% to 55% of the total, a move that will likely lift the scores of Asian and Middle Eastern institutions by 2–5 points in the 2026 edition.

Data Integrity and the Rise of National Ranking Systems

A major geopolitical undercurrent is the distrust of international ranking methodologies by national governments. China’s Ministry of Education has promoted its own ranking system, the “China University Rankings” (CUR), since 2022, while the Indian government launched the “National Institutional Ranking Framework” (NIRF) in 2016, which now covers over 6,000 institutions. These domestic systems use metrics that favor local priorities — such as “number of patents filed in China” or “faculty with Indian PhDs” — which diverge sharply from QS/THE indicators. In 2025, the Chinese government announced it would no longer provide official data to QS for its ranking calculations, a move that could force QS to rely on publicly available data for Chinese universities, potentially introducing a 3–8% margin of error in their scores [Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2025, Notice on Data Transparency in International Rankings]. This data gap will be most pronounced in the 2026 rankings, where Chinese university submissions may be incomplete or non-standardized.

H3: The Impact on Tiered University Systems

For students and parents, the divergence between national and international rankings creates a decision-making paradox. A university ranked 15th in the NIRF may be outside the global top 500 in QS, yet its domestic graduate employment rate may exceed that of a globally ranked institution. This disconnect is particularly acute in countries like Brazil and South Africa, where government funding is tied to national rankings rather than international ones. The 2026 QS and THE rankings will therefore need to explicitly address this dual system, possibly by adding a “national context” filter to their online tables.

Regional Blocs and the New Geography of Excellence

The formation of research blocs — such as the Quad (US, Japan, Australia, India) and the BRICS+ (now including Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) — is creating new patterns of co-authorship and funding that will appear in 2026 ranking indicators. Data from the 2024 Clarivate Research in the BRICS+ report shows that co-authored papers among BRICS+ countries increased by 34% between 2020 and 2023, while papers co-authored between Quad countries rose by 22% [Clarivate, 2024, Research in the BRICS+ Report]. These bloc-based collaborations are often cited in high-impact journals, boosting the “citation per faculty” metric for participating universities. For example, the University of São Paulo and the University of Tehran, both BRICS+ members, saw a 15% increase in their field-weighted citation impact (FWCI) from 2021 to 2023, directly attributable to intra-bloc partnerships. In the 2026 rankings, universities in these blocs may climb 5–10 places in ARWU and THE, which heavily weight citation impact.

H3: The Exclusion Effect

Conversely, universities in countries that are geopolitically isolated — such as Russia and Belarus — face exclusion from key databases. Since 2022, Clarivate has suspended sales of Web of Science subscriptions to Russian institutions, and Elsevier has restricted access to Scopus for some Russian universities. This has led to a 40% decline in indexed publications from Russian universities in 2023 compared to 2021 [Scopus, 2024, Content Coverage Report]. Consequently, Moscow State University, which ranked 75th in QS in 2022, is projected to fall outside the top 200 in the 2026 edition. This exclusion effect is a stark example of how geopolitical decisions can erase years of academic progress from global visibility.

FAQ

Q1: How much can a university’s rank change in 2026 due to geopolitical factors alone?

Geopolitical factors — including research collaboration declines, visa policy shifts, and reputation survey changes — can cause a university’s rank to shift by 3 to 10 positions in QS or THE, and up to 15 positions in ARWU, depending on its reliance on international metrics. For example, a Chinese university heavily dependent on U.S. co-authorship could drop 5–8 places, while a Swiss university benefiting from increased Horizon Europe funding could rise 4–6 places.

Q2: Will the 2026 rankings penalize universities in countries with restrictive visa policies?

Yes, indirectly. QS and THE both measure international student and faculty ratios, which are directly affected by visa approval rates. Universities in Canada and Australia, where visa caps reduced international student intake by 35% and 26% respectively in 2024, are expected to see a 2–4 point drop in their “international diversity” sub-scores in the 2026 QS rankings.

Q3: Are there any universities that are likely to benefit from geopolitical trends in 2026?

Universities in geopolitically neutral or emerging bloc countries — such as the National University of Singapore (NUS), ETH Zurich, and the University of São Paulo — are likely to benefit. NUS saw a 12% increase in international applications in 2024, while ETH Zurich’s FWCI rose 9% from 2021 to 2023, positioning them for top-5 and top-10 placements respectively in the 2026 QS and THE rankings.

References

• OECD, 2024, Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2024: Cross-Border Collaboration Trends
• UK Home Office, 2024, Immigration Statistics Year Ending September 2024: Sponsored Study Visas
• Nature Index, 2025, Annual Tables 2024: Bilateral Collaboration Analysis
• European Commission, 2024, Horizon Europe Dashboard: Budget Allocation and Project Data
• Clarivate, 2024, Research in the BRICS+ Report: Co-Authorship and Citation Impact