Seven UC campuses were included in the top 100 spots of Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), compiled by the Center for World-Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong Universty, China. The top ranked campuses were Berkeley (2), UCLA (13), San Diego (14), UCSF (18), Santa Barbara (32), Davis (46) and Irvine (46).

ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index — Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution. More than 1,000 institutions are ranked, with the top 500 published online. The rankings were first published in 2003.