On August 15, the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy released the 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), in which Fujian Normal University (FNU) demonstrated significant progress. The university now ranks within the 501–600 band globally, rising approximately 100 places compared to the previous year.
Within China, FNU now stands 5th among mainland normal universities, sharing the position with Central China Normal University, Hangzhou Normal University, Northeast Normal University, and Shaanxi Normal University—an improvement of two places from the year before.
The ARWU ranking evaluates universities using six key indicators: the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals, the number of Highly Cited Researchers, articles published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), as well as per capita academic performance.
Published annually, ARWU assesses more than 2,500 institutions worldwide and publicly releases the top 1,000. In the 2025 edition, 222 universities from the Chinese Mainland were ranked, reflecting the growing presence of Chinese higher education on the global stage.
