Israel's universities' overall performance fell by 21% in 2024, according to the QS Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking by subject, released Wednesday.

Israel ranked 46th out of 96 countries and territories included in the ranking in terms of its number of entries. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem's theology department, Israel's top-ranked department globally, fell 5 spots from 11th to 16th place.

The Technion Mathematics Department, climbed 14 spots, from 116th place to 102 place globally, while Tel Aviv University's Mathematics department, formerly ranked around 130 globally, dropped 21 spots.

The Israel-Hamas war had a significant impact on Israel's universities, which opened late and had many professors and students absent because of reserve duty.

Global university rankings overview

The US led the rankings with 213 ranked universities and 244 top-ten entries. The UK followed it with 103 ranked universities and 148 top-ten entries, and Switzerland with 27 ranked universities and 31 top-ten entries.

Harvard University was the world's strongest-performing institution, with 19 disciplines in which it came in first. MIT was in second place with 11 fields in which it leads.

The analysis includes over 16,000 university programs at 1500 universities across 95 countries or territories and 55 academic fields.

The rankings are determined using five indicators: academic reputation, which is based on the opinion of 144,000 university faculty members; employer reputation, based on the opinion of 98,000 hiring managers, HR, and talent managers; citations per paper, H index, and international research network of the institution.

Full results of the ranking can be seen at QS's website: https://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings