In order to qualify for inclusion in the QS World University Rankings® -Physics 2016, universities must offer a course or the option to specialize in these disciplines, and meet the discipline specific threshold for papers published.

 

2016	2015	Institution	Country	Academic	Employer	Citations	H	Score
1	1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	United States	100.0	96.7	94.0	98.8	97.9
2	2=	Harvard University	United States	97.8	95.7	95.2	95.7	96.4
3	4	Stanford University	United States	95.1	93.9	97.4	100.0	96.3
4	2=	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	98.3	100.0	90.6	91.4	95.7
5	5	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	United States	97.2	90.3	94.7	95.0	94.9
6	6	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	95.9	97.5	91.3	90.9	94.3
7	8	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	United States	95.2	82.4	91.6	95.1	91.9
8=	7	Princeton University	United States	93.3	80.4	94.9	93.2	91.0
8=	11	The University of Tokyo	Japan	91.9	90.1	86.3	95.0	91.0
10	9	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	Switzerland	91.6	89.9	89.1	87.9	90.0
11	10	Imperial College London	United Kingdom	90.8	89.8	88.0	89.6	89.8
12	12	University of Chicago	United States	86.4	76.1	97.2	89.2	87.1
13=	13	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München	Germany	88.9	77.0	92.4	86.3	86.7
13=	17	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	United States	85.4	80.9	92.8	89.0	86.7
15	19	Columbia University	United States	81.1	83.4	96.3	90.2	86.4
16	16	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)	Switzerland	85.1	88.1	89.0	84.3	86.3
17	14	Technische Universität München	Germany	83.1	89.5	90.2	85.0	86.2
18	23	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore	84.0	86.4	90.3	83.4	85.6
19=	18	Kyoto University	Japan	85.4	86.3	82.5	87.3	85.4
19=	20	Yale University	United States	83.7	75.5	94.6	89.6	85.4
21=	21	Cornell University	United States	84.2	77.3	91.6	88.9	85.2
21=	15	University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)	United States	88.8	54.9	100.0	93.3	85.2
23=	28	KIT, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie	Germany	80.1	85.0	85.4	87.6	83.6
23=	25=	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States	84.8	71.5	89.3	87.4	83.6
25	29	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan	85.3	83.2	80.1	83.0	83.4
26	24	Ecole Polytechnique ParisTech	France	81.1	79.4	89.7	85.4	83.3
27	36	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russia	80.9	94.5	71.4	87.3	83.0
28	27	Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg	Germany	83.2	74.2	88.6	85.2	82.9
29	34=	University of Maryland, College Park	United States	76.5	74.7	93.4	93.0	82.8
30=	38=	Peking University	China	79.7	85.6	82.2	85.2	82.5
30=	41=	Tsinghua University	China	81.5	85.2	79.9	84.5	82.5
32=	22	Sapienza - Università di Roma	Italy	80.6	74.5	83.8	89.2	81.7
32=	32=	University of Michigan	United States	75.2	78.1	89.6	90.4	81.7
32=	34=	University of Toronto	Canada	77.5	78.8	88.4	86.1	81.7
35=	41=	Seoul National University (SNU)	South Korea	80.9	79.2	85.2	81.7	81.6
35=	37	Tohoku University	Japan	83.3	77.5	79.8	84.3	81.6
37	32=	UCL (University College London)	United Kingdom	80.0	78.2	84.7	83.6	81.3
38=	45=	Osaka University	Japan	82.6	78.5	76.8	84.1	80.9
38=	38=	University of Texas at Austin	United States	76.7	72.8	91.3	86.8	80.9
40=	30=	Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen	Germany	75.3	78.3	87.4	86.9	80.6
40=	25=	The University of Manchester	United Kingdom	79.7	74.6	83.6	85.6	80.6
42	43	Nanyang Technological University (NTU)	Singapore	75.8	85.6	85.0	79.8	80.4
43	45=	Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris (ENS Paris)	France	86.3	69.8	89.9	68.7	80.2
44	45=	The University of Melbourne	Australia	74.3	80.8	89.1	82.2	80.1
45	51-100	Universität Hamburg	Germany	76.2	68.9	90.6	87.4	79.9
46	49	University of British Columbia	Canada	75.2	75.7	89.8	82.6	79.7
47=	51-100	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	79.9	83.5	81.3	73.4	79.6
47=	50=	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan	77.4	82.4	80.3	80.4	79.6
49	38=	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom	75.3	76.9	87.8	82.4	79.5
50=	45=	University of California, San Diego (UCSD)	United States	76.9	71.3	86.2	84.9	79.2
50=	44	University of Pennsylvania	United States	74.8	67.8	94.6	84.0	79.2