UC Berkeley climbs to No. 5 globally in 2026 THE Business & Economics Ranking

UC Berkeley placed No. 5 globally for business and economics in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2026.

The school was buoyed by its No. 1 ranking for research quality, moving it to the Top 5 behind MIT (No. 1), Stanford University (No. 2), Tsinghua University (No. 3), and the University of Oxford (No. 4).

THE, the parent company of Poets&Quants, weighs metrics related to teaching, research, industry partnerships, and international presence in this ranking of the world’s top universities for business and economics.

The ranking considers performance across three core disciplines: business and management, accounting and finance, and economics and econometrics. Berkeley’s research quality score jumped 7.5-points to 91.5.

This year, THE evaluated 1,067 schools across 91 countries and territories, measuring five core evaluation areas, including:

• Teaching, including teaching reputation, student-to-staff ratio, doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio, doctorate-to-staff ratio, and institutional income. 
• Research Environment, including research reputation, income, and productivity.
• Research Quality, including citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and influence. (Universities must produce at least 200 published research papers to be considered for the ranking.)
• Industry, including income from industry partnerships and patents.
• International Outlook, including international students, staff, and co-authorship.

Read more about the THE methodology here.