Faculty of Arts and Humanities ranked amongst world’s best in global subject rankings

The Faculty has been ranked 78th in the world in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 in new rankings published today (22 March 2023), which marks a rise of 28 places from last year.

We are delighted to announce our position in the QS World Rankings in 2023 as this recognises the excellent quality of our research and the large number of citations our papers achieve, our high standing and reputation among employers, as well as the achievements of our students and graduates.

Professor Susan Fitzmaurice

Vice-President and Head of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities


The QS World University Rankings by Subject are compiled annually to help prospective students identify and compare the world’s leading universities in a particular subject. At subject level research citations, along with the results of major global surveys of employers and academics, are used to rank universities. At the broad-faculty area, the International Research Network indicator is used to highlight the sustained international research collaboration of an institution.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject rank the world’s top universities in individual subject areas and were this year based on the analysis of over 16.4 million unique papers published between 2016-2020, producing close to 117.8 million citations in 2016-2021. 1597 institutions were ranked across 54 subjects in 5 broad subject areas, creating over 18,300 ranked entries.

A global reputation

Sheffield is a research university with a global reputation for excellence. We're a member of the Russell Group: one of the 24 leading UK universities for research and teaching.