The University of Macau (UM) has seen its ranking rise across multiple disciplines, according to the World University Rankings by Subject 2026.
Published yesterday, the listing shows the university performing most strongly in education studies, breaking into the world’s top 100 in this category with a ranking in 83rd place. This marks a significant rise in comparison to 2025, when it earned a spot in the 126th-150th place range.
UM also saw rises in computer science, engineering and psychology, with each of these subjects jumping from the 126th-150th place bracket in 2025 to the 101st-125th place range in 2026.
Meanwhile, arts and humanities, business and economics, life sciences, medical and health, physical health and social sciences all managed to break into the top 200.
Between 2025 and 2026, arts and humanities rose from the 301st-400th place category to 176th-200th range. Similarly, social sciences surged from the 176th-200th place range to 151st-175th, while business and economics jumped from the 251st-300th cohort to 176th-200th.
By contrast, the rankings of medical health and life sciences stayed the same between 2025 and 2026, remaining in the 151st-175th place bracket. Physical science’s position also remained consistent in the 176th-200th place range.
Among the 11 disciplines recognised, the only one that experienced a decline was law, which dipped from the 176th-200th grouping in 2025 to the 201st-250th cohort in 2026.
[See more: The University of Macau’s new Hengqin campus will cost 6.1 billion yuan]
Two other Macao universities were recognised by the World University Rankings by Subject 2026. They included the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), which received recognition across four subjects.
Out of these disciplines, MUST performed most strongly in business and economics, as well as computer science. The university’s business ranking exceeded that of UM, rising from the 201st-250th category to the 151st-175th place bracket between 2025 and 2026. Its position in computing, however, remained in the 151st-175th grouping.
Six subjects offered by the City University of Macau were featured on the listings as well.
Globally, the top spots were dominated by tertiary institutions based in the US and UK, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. These higher education providers were ranked first across the 11 subject categories.
Despite this, Times Higher Education – the compiler of the rankings – pointed out that Asian universities were not only excelling in the field of STEM, but were also making faster gains than their Western counterparts in disciplines such as the arts.
“Global higher education is becoming more multipolar with the domination of Western Europe and North America to some extent weakening, and this is a good thing for higher education,” said Hiroshima University professor Futao Huang.
The subject ranking was determined using largely the same methodology as the World University Rankings, which analyses 18 performance indicators. However, adjustments were made to account for differences in staffing and publication across subjects.
