The QS World University Rankings 2025 announced the results of its special edition of the QS Arab Region University Rankings 2025, in which twenty-five Iraqi universities achieved positive competitive rankings. The global rankings (https://www.topuniversities.com/arab-region-university-rankings?countries=iq) 246 institutions in the Arab region competed on the indicators of academic reputation (30%), employer reputation (20%), faculty to student ratio (15%), international research network (10%), web impact (5%), proportion of faculty with PhDs (5%), citations per research (5%), number of research papers per faculty (5%), proportion of international faculty (2.5%), and proportion of international students (2.5%).

The results showed a significant increase in the number of competing Iraqi universities to twenty-five compared to last year’s edition, which saw only eighteen universities competing, while Baghdad University ranked thirty-eighth in this edition, followed by Mustansiriyah, Basra, Nahrin, Kufa, Babel, Technological, Anbar, Karbala, Mosul, Middle Euphrates Technical, Nineveh, Tikrit, Diyala, Qadisiyah, Islamic University, Wassit, Iraqiya, Muthanna, Central Technology, Northern Technology, Southern Technology, Fallujah, Kirkuk and Dhi Qar. More than 100 universities and colleges in Iraq compete in eight rankings.