The University of Ruhuna has placed among the world’s top 2,000 universities in the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2025 report, joining the University of Peradeniya and the University of Colombo as the only three Sri Lankan institutions to make the list this year. CWUR assessed 21,462 institutions worldwide for the ranking.
Ruhuna secured world rank 1,759 — placing it in the top 8.2% of universities globally and second nationally, just behind Peradeniya at rank 1,683 (top 7.8%). Colombo followed at rank 1,843 (top 8.6%). All three figures are drawn directly from CWUR’s published 2025 rankings.
| University | World Rank | National Rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peradeniya | 1,683 | 1 | Top 7.8% |
| Ruhuna | 1,759 | 2 | Top 8.2% |
| Colombo | 1,843 | 3 | Top 8.6% |
CWUR ranks universities primarily on academic and research output rather than reputation surveys — a methodology that explains why Sri Lankan universities score noticeably higher here than on reputation-weighted rankings such as THE or QS.
At the top of the same global list, Harvard University held the #1 spot, with MIT, Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale, and the University of Chicago also in the top 10 — 8 of the world’s top 10 universities are American, with Cambridge and Oxford the only non-US entries in that group.
