The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, which was published in 2017 for the first time, compares universities from all over the world within the scope of particular scientific disciplines. This year’s ranking includes fifty-seven disciplines in the field of nature, medical, social, technical, and life sciences. The founder of the GRAS is the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy agency, known first of all for publishing the world ranking of universities since 2009 – Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

Mathematics

Wroclaw University placed itself among 201-300 the best universities in the world in mathematics, moving up from the last year’s 401-500 place. Taking into account Polish universities (only five of them are found in this discipline in the ranking), we are placed second, ex aequo with Jagiellonian University. AGH University of Kraków is ahead of us (101-150 place in the world), the University of Warsaw took the third place in Poland (301-400 in the world), and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń was placed fourth.

Prof. dr hab. Dariusz Buraczewski, the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, comments on the success of mathematicians and reminds us that a high level of this discipline at our university has a long tradition.

− Mathematics at the University of Wrocław is regarded as a direct continuator of the world-famous mathematic school from Lviv, whose co-creator was Hugo Steinhaus – one of the founders of postwar University of Wrocław and the first dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. Traditions of creating world-class mathematics from Lviv were proudly continued by the next generations, for instance by Edward Marczewski, Czesław Ryl-Nardzewski, and Andrzej Hulanicki – the characters of the currently open exhibition on the occasion of the 80^th anniversary of the University of Wrocław − adds prof. dr hab. Dariusz Buraczewski.

− Obviously, the present achievements of mathematicians from Wroclaw affect the good results of the Institute of Mathematics in rankings nowadays. Let’s pay attention to Mariusz Mirek, who is preoccupied with the broadly understood harmonic analysis, and Damian Osajda, who specializes in the combinatorial group theory − says dr hab. Piotr Borodulin-Nadzieja, prof. UWr, the assistant director for promotion at the Institute of Mathematics. − Mariusz Mirek cooperated with the world-class mathematicians, such as Terence Tao and Jean Bourgain, and his articles were published in the most prestigious mathematical journals in the world (Annals of Mathematics, Inventiones Mathematicae). Damian Osajda’s articles can also be found in equally prestigious journals (Acta Mathematica, Inventiones Mathematicae),” adds professor Borodulin-Nadzieja.

Psychology

In the ranking of psychology, UWr was placed in the group of 301-400 the best universities in the world and the second one in Poland, ex aequo with SWPS University. Jagiellonian University is the best Polish university in terms of this discipline in the ranking – 151-200 place in the world. Adam Mickiewicz University and University of Warsaw were ex-aequo placed third in Poland and 401-500 in the world.

Physics

Six Polish universities were found in the physics ranking: Warsaw University and AGH University from Krakow ex aequo took the first place in Poland and 151-200 place in the world. Jagiellonian University was the second one in Poland and 201-300 in the world, whereas the University of Wrocław, Nicolaus Copernicus University, and Warsaw University of Technology took the third place in Poland and 401-500 place in the world.

Universities do not report any data to the GRAS ranking – they are automatically downloaded from Web of Science and InCites. Bibliometric data from the years 2020-2024 were taken into account in this year’s edition.

In the GRAS ranking 2025, 2000 out of 5000 universities were included in fifty-seven particular disciplines.

Ranking methodology

Universities in GRAS are classified according to the five categories:

1. International Collaboration – the ratio of common publications prepared with authors from abroad to the overall number of institution publications.
2. World-Class Faculty – this category includes four rates:

• laureate – the number of full-time academic staff hired by the institution (according to the state in June 2025) who received significant international academic prizes in their disciplines.
• Highly Cited Researchers – the most frequently cited researchers in their disciplines according to Clarivate.
• editor – the number of academic staff members hired by the institution who currently perform the function of editors in international journals, which are indexed in SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI Journal Citation Report (JCR) of the Clarivate company.
• leadership – the number of academic staff members who currently hold executive positions in key international scientific institutions, according to the state in June 2025.

3. World-Class Output – this category includes two rates: TJ (top journal papers – the number of papers published in the best journals from the given discipline) and AWARDS – significant academic prizes (for instance, the Nobel prize and the Fields Medal).

4. Research impact – calculated with the use of Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) – the ratio of articles citations published in the given discipline by the university to the average number of articles citations from the same category, published in the same year and in the same type of journals.

5. High Quality Research – a category measured with the use of the Q1 rate, which stands for the number of publications of the university in the given discipline in journals from the first quartile in terms of Impact Factor.

Translated by Kinga Krzywonos (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.