On August 15, ShanghaiRanking released the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Fujian Normal University (FNU) ranked 555th globally, climbing 44 places from the previous year and marking its fourth consecutive year of improvement. FNU also placed 8th among normal universities in Chinese mainland, reflecting its steadily growing international academic influence.
ARWU evaluates more than 2,500 universities worldwide each year based on six indicators: the number of alumni and staff who have won Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals, the number of highly cited researchers, the number of papers published in Nature and Science, the number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and per-capita academic performance. The ranking lists the world’s top 1,000 universities. In the 2026 edition, 234 universities from Chinese mainland made the list.