Discover the best schools for physics research.
A physics degree can lead to a career in engineering, computer or information systems, data analysis, teaching and more. Some physicists have become astronauts and Nobel Prize winners, and many have contributed to world-changing technological and scientific advances. Here are the top 15 Best Global Universities for Physics, as ranked by U.S. News based on academic research performance in that subject area.
15. University of Science & Technology of China, CAS
Location: Hefei, Anhui, China
Best Global Universities overall rank: 82 (tie)
Fact: Among the research labs that the University of Science & Technology of China, CAS operates are the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science.
14. Université Paris Saclay
Location: Saint-Aubin, France
Best Global Universities overall rank: 76 (tie)
Fact: The physics department at the Université Paris Saclay boasts two research laboratories: the Quantum and Molecular Photonics Laboratory and the Aimé Cotton Laboratory.
13. University of Oxford
Location: Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Best Global Universities overall rank: 4
Fact: Every year, about 10 members of the University of Oxford physics department win national or international prizes for their research.
12. University of Cambridge
Location: Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Best Global Universities overall rank: 6
Fact: The University of Cambridge physics department has collaborative research programs focused on nuclear energy, computational radiotherapy, the physics of sustainability and semiconductor physics, and quantum information, according to the school’s website.
11. Peking University
Location: Beijing, China
Best Global Universities overall rank: 31
Fact: Peking University’s research institutes and departments include theoretical physics, condensed matter and material physics, modern optics, heavy ion physics and astronomy, according to the school’s website.
10. Columbia University
Location: New York, New York, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 9
Fact: The physics department at Columbia University claims more than 10 Nobel Prize winners since 1944, including several whose work was done at the school.
9. Princeton University
Location: Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 18
Fact: Princeton University offers a fully funded one-year predoctoral fellowship for aspiring physics scholars from underrepresented populations, and the fellowship includes an admission offer to the physics Ph.D. program.
8. University of Tokyo
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Best Global Universities overall rank: 84
Fact: Focus areas of University of Tokyo physics researchers include nuclear physics, particle physics, condensed matter physics and biophysics, according to the school’s website.
7. Tsinghua University
Location: Beijing, China
Best Global Universities overall rank: 16
Fact: Tsinghua University’s physics faculty includes 10 members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Their research concentrates on numerous areas of physics, including high energy astrophysics, particle physics and quantum field theory, and superconductivity study and application.
6. University of Chicago
Location: Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 25
Fact: NASA named its Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, which traveled to the sun, after the late University of Chicago Professor Emeritus Eugene Parker, who is known for his research on the star.
5. California Institute of Technology
Location: Pasadena, California, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 23
Fact: Undergraduates at the California Institute of Technology can major in physics or applied physics, which has more of an emphasis on developing new technologies, according to the school’s website.
4. Stanford University
Location: Stanford, California, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 3
Fact: Stanford University operates the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy science lab. The lab is home to a two-mile particle accelerator that generates the world’s brightest X-rays, according to the SLAC website.
3. University of California Berkeley
Location: Berkeley, California, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 5
Fact: Reinhard Genzel — a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at University of California Berkeley — was a co-recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, acknowledged for the discovery of a “supermassive compact object” in the middle of the Milky Way.
2. Harvard University
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 1
Fact: Among Harvard University’s numerous physics-related research centers are the Black Hole Initiative, the Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, the Center for Ultracold Atoms and the Center for Nanoscale Systems, according to the university’s website.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Best Global Universities overall rank: 2
Fact: Graduate physics researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can conduct research within a dozen branches of physics, including astrophysics theory, high energy and particle theory, and quantum information science, according to the university’s website.
Here are the top 15 global universities for physics.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Harvard University
3. University of California Berkeley
4. Stanford University
5. California Institute of Technology
6. University of Chicago
7. Tsinghua University
8. University of Tokyo
9. Princeton University
10. Columbia University
11. Peking University
12. University of Cambridge
13. University of Oxford
14. Université Paris Saclay
15. University of Science & Technology of China, CAS
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See the Top 11 Global Universities for Physics originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 08/19/24: This article was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
