ITS Research Intelligence

United States University Research Rankings

Compare United States universities using recent research output, citation impact, growth and a transparent research-performance score.

Research landscape

The current ITS Research Intelligence dataset contains 1,905 index-ready universities in United States. Across those institutions, the average five-year research output is approximately 4,247 works and the average five-year citation count is approximately 45,476. The average publication-growth signal is 48.3%. These figures describe the institutions that pass the public quality gate; they are not intended to represent every tertiary institution in the country.

Country rankings are useful for benchmarking because they reduce some of the structural differences that make global comparisons difficult. They still should not be treated as a complete assessment of institutional quality: teaching, student outcomes, funding levels, research field mix and institutional mission are outside this research-performance score. The value of the page is in seeing who is producing research, how that activity is changing, and where citation visibility is concentrated.

Top research universities in United States

Rank	University	Country	Score	5-year works	5-year citations	Growth
#1	Harvard University	United States	92.3	173,192	3,458,186	-2.7%
#2	Stanford University	United States	90.0	130,687	2,021,646	0.4%
#3	University of Washington	United States	89.8	116,133	1,572,311	0.7%
#4	Johns Hopkins University	United States	89.2	130,229	1,800,641	-4.1%
#5	Yale University	United States	88.1	114,240	1,266,921	65.6%
#6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States	87.8	65,399	1,130,870	6.8%
#7	Cornell University	United States	87.8	110,486	1,397,475	7.6%
#8	University of Pennsylvania	United States	87.4	85,351	1,379,416	1.6%
#9	University of California San Diego	United States	87.2	91,957	1,286,994	5.0%
#10	Columbia University	United States	86.9	85,462	1,137,213	2.9%
#11	University of California, San Francisco	United States	86.8	78,367	1,154,116	2.3%
#12	University of Michigan	United States	86.7	119,673	1,489,386	4.8%
#13	University of California, Los Angeles	United States	86.7	101,122	1,222,341	-0.1%
#14	University of California, Berkeley	United States	86.1	90,219	1,124,753	-10.8%
#15	Washington University in St. Louis	United States	85.5	69,100	896,664	3.3%
#16	Northwestern University	United States	85.5	58,235	1,035,865	-2.2%
#17	University of Chicago	United States	85.1	74,344	828,571	15.1%
#18	New York University	United States	85.0	70,745	837,501	18.8%
#19	Duke University	United States	84.7	72,420	855,997	4.8%
#20	University of Wisconsin–Madison	United States	84.6	76,160	843,870	12.6%
#21	Princeton University	United States	84.6	44,013	637,257	4.6%
#22	University of Minnesota	United States	84.5	60,557	810,861	-6.8%
#23	University of Southern California	United States	84.4	62,414	759,601	4.0%
#24	Emory University	United States	84.0	65,958	808,961	6.6%
#25	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	United States	84.0	63,587	700,433	12.7%
#26	Pennsylvania State University	United States	83.9	67,548	757,529	-0.8%
#27	University of Pittsburgh	United States	83.9	67,694	840,253	7.5%
#28	University of Maryland, College Park	United States	83.9	49,484	634,761	9.6%
#29	California Institute of Technology	United States	83.9	32,692	475,971	-1.0%
#30	The Ohio State University	United States	83.9	72,788	800,805	1.7%
#31	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States	83.8	105,988	890,214	18.5%
#32	Boston University	United States	83.8	46,726	642,048	2.4%
#33	University of Florida	United States	83.5	86,658	830,435	3.6%
#34	The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center	United States	83.5	41,739	594,281	25.6%
#35	Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai	United States	83.5	59,027	766,984	-20.9%
#36	The University of Texas at Austin	United States	83.4	63,470	696,912	14.3%
#37	University of California, Davis	United States	83.3	68,901	744,418	-10.5%
#38	Baylor College of Medicine	United States	83.2	43,046	546,611	3.9%
#39	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	United States	83.1	54,023	641,272	1.6%
#40	University of Arizona	United States	82.9	56,816	607,763	6.1%
#41	University of California, Irvine	United States	82.8	50,491	612,393	2.0%
#42	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States	82.5	45,821	577,013	0.3%
#43	University of Colorado Denver	United States	82.4	37,854	652,771	0.5%
#44	Texas A&M University	United States	82.4	59,018	602,712	18.4%
#45	University of Utah	United States	82.3	58,484	625,790	-0.4%
#46	Carnegie Mellon University	United States	82.1	36,963	427,855	29.0%
#47	University of Colorado Boulder	United States	82.1	41,933	506,926	0.2%
#48	Brown University	United States	81.4	47,865	485,930	32.7%
#49	University of Virginia	United States	81.4	44,906	476,760	18.8%
#50	Vanderbilt University	United States	81.3	36,309	429,463	1.2%
#51	Arizona State University	United States	81.3	49,699	509,257	6.4%
#52	Oregon Health & Science University	United States	81.1	33,759	545,558	0.9%
#53	Michigan State University	United States	81.1	61,191	579,076	6.3%
#54	University of Alabama at Birmingham	United States	81.0	39,879	442,290	11.7%
#55	University of Miami	United States	80.9	41,793	444,770	13.2%
#56	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States	80.8	27,965	346,281	-13.7%
#57	Indiana University Bloomington	United States	80.7	22,992	409,880	8.0%
#58	University of Illinois Chicago	United States	80.6	43,166	443,225	7.8%
#59	Case Western Reserve University	United States	80.6	34,622	390,799	1.6%
#60	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States	80.6	19,428	261,116	7.5%
#61	University of Maryland, Baltimore	United States	80.1	30,731	345,385	-4.0%
#62	Tufts University	United States	80.0	27,151	291,227	45.2%
#63	Northeastern University	United States	79.7	24,642	290,247	32.4%
#64	The University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center	United States	79.6	15,109	339,858	9.2%
#65	Rice University	United States	79.5	19,343	249,043	12.9%
#66	Albert Einstein College of Medicine	United States	79.4	21,181	275,839	4.0%
#67	University of Massachusetts Amherst	United States	79.3	29,167	352,589	-22.3%
#68	Stony Brook University	United States	79.3	29,239	311,774	-9.1%
#69	Virginia Tech	United States	79.3	41,176	382,915	19.9%
#70	University of Iowa	United States	79.1	35,335	333,573	0.0%
#71	University of Georgia	United States	79.1	29,689	318,267	16.5%
#72	The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston	United States	79.1	28,074	329,734	10.5%
#73	University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School	United States	78.9	18,573	208,284	59.2%
#74	University of Tennessee at Knoxville	United States	78.8	33,422	346,117	0.6%
#75	Weill Cornell Medicine	United States	78.8	20,564	326,406	10.4%
#76	University of California, Riverside	United States	78.8	26,120	278,997	-0.5%
#77	University at Buffalo, State University of New York	United States	78.7	27,961	283,172	15.1%
#78	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States	78.7	77,897	533,661	-9.1%
#79	North Carolina State University	United States	78.5	46,605	401,683	-24.4%
#80	University of Cincinnati	United States	78.5	26,026	287,693	-0.3%
#81	University of Colorado Anschutz	United States	78.4	29,402	330,971	10.8%
#82	Virginia Commonwealth University	United States	78.3	23,965	280,338	3.1%
#83	University of California System	United States	78.1	15,322	168,615	74.6%
#84	Colorado State University	United States	78.1	29,528	297,407	5.7%
#85	George Washington University	United States	77.9	31,120	309,175	-2.4%
#86	University of Connecticut	United States	77.9	26,414	306,438	-4.4%
#87	Temple University	United States	77.9	21,893	260,718	-0.1%
#88	University of Houston	United States	77.8	23,702	250,803	12.0%
#89	Iowa State University	United States	77.7	27,810	258,987	-16.6%
#90	Florida State University	United States	77.7	23,982	239,117	7.1%
#91	University of New Mexico	United States	77.6	18,713	222,704	-7.4%
#92	University of Missouri	United States	77.6	27,858	262,677	23.5%
#93	Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian	United States	77.5	8,519	163,697	0.0%
#94	Rockefeller University	United States	77.5	6,583	134,878	29.6%
#95	Wake Forest University	United States	77.5	21,148	218,810	20.2%
#96	University of Rochester	United States	77.4	27,442	251,696	-11.5%
#97	Georgetown University	United States	77.3	27,880	250,967	12.9%
#98	University of Oklahoma	United States	77.2	20,136	207,784	16.4%
#99	Oregon State University	United States	77.1	28,922	250,548	-10.7%
#100	Louisiana State University	United States	77.1	19,762	209,704	-0.7%

Transparent methodology

How ITS Research Score v3 is constructed

One formula applies to every index-ready institution, using the five most recent complete calendar years: 25% research output, 25% citations, 20% h-index and 5% i10-index (log-normalized so the largest universities do not dominate linearly), 15% citation impact (the institution’s percentile on citations per work, reduced below 500 works so small samples cannot win by chance), 5% publication growth and 5% international-collaboration share. When collaboration data is not yet available, the other weights are rescaled.

Data-quality controls: the unfinished current year is never counted, and a year in which recorded output jumps to more than three times the institution’s usual level while being at least 90% open access is treated as a bulk dataset or repository deposit and scored at the usual level. Raw data are kept and every adjustment is logged. Open-access share and topic diversity are published as separate rankings and do not affect the main score. Citation impact is not field-normalized.

These indicators assess research activity only. They do not measure teaching quality, student experience, employability, reputation, finances or accreditation. Missing data are left missing rather than fabricated.