In order to qualify for inclusion in the QS World University Rankings® -Nursing 2016, universities must offer a course or the option to specialize in these disciplines, and meet the discipline specific threshold for papers published.
| 2016 | Institution | Country | Academic | Employer | Citations | H | Score |
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania | United States | 100.0 | 69.9 | 92.4 | 97.1 | 93.8 |
| 2 | Johns Hopkins University | United States | 92.4 | 84.5 | 93.1 | 96.5 | 93.1 |
| 3 | University of Toronto | Canada | 86.0 | 87.2 | 93.5 | 100.0 | 92.6 |
| 4 | University of Alberta | Canada | 92.2 | 85.0 | 92.6 | 89.9 | 90.9 |
| 5 | Karolinska Institute | Sweden | 98.4 | 74.1 | 93.3 | 83.7 | 90.0 |
| 6 | King's College London (KCL) | United Kingdom | 99.9 | 74.5 | 87.0 | 86.9 | 89.6 |
| 7 | University of Michigan | United States | 89.0 | 74.0 | 90.2 | 91.3 | 88.6 |
| 8 | The University of Manchester | United Kingdom | 97.8 | 71.7 | 87.1 | 82.8 | 87.5 |
| 9 | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | United States | 77.9 | 62.9 | 96.5 | 95.3 | 87.2 |
| 10 | University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) | United States | 85.6 | 53.3 | 93.2 | 93.3 | 87.0 |
| 11 | University of Washington | United States | 91.7 | 47.3 | 90.5 | 89.9 | 86.4 |
| 12 | University of Pittsburgh | United States | 77.2 | 63.4 | 93.3 | 94.0 | 85.7 |
| 13 | The University of Sydney | Australia | 80.6 | 100.0 | 86.5 | 84.5 | 85.5 |
| 14 | University of Southampton | United Kingdom | 91.1 | 53.4 | 94.7 | 80.2 | 85.1 |
| 15 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States | 72.0 | 86.7 | 92.4 | 89.9 | 85.0 |
| 16 | Monash University | Australia | 83.3 | 92.8 | 85.7 | 82.8 | 84.8 |
| 17 | Yale University | United States | 74.2 | 91.0 | 93.4 | 84.5 | 84.7 |
| 18 | National University of Singapore (NUS) | Singapore | 85.5 | 72.4 | 91.4 | 81.1 | 84.6 |
| 19 | The University of Melbourne | Australia | 84.6 | 88.7 | 85.9 | 77.3 | 83.2 |
| 20= | University of British Columbia | Canada | 78.6 | 80.7 | 89.9 | 81.1 | 83.0 |
| 20= | University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) | Australia | 85.5 | 93.3 | 85.7 | 74.3 | 83.0 |
| 22= | Deakin University | Australia | 83.4 | 87.6 | 88.2 | 73.2 | 82.2 |
| 22= | The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) | Hong Kong | 78.3 | 90.3 | 90.2 | 75.3 | 82.2 |
| 24= | Duke University | United States | 77.6 | 71.2 | 87.9 | 84.5 | 82.1 |
| 24= | University of Turku | Finland | 79.6 | 86.3 | 91.1 | 74.3 | 82.1 |
| 26 | University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom | 80.4 | 70.3 | 92.4 | 75.3 | 81.5 |
| 27 | University of Minnesota | United States | 61.2 | 76.9 | 94.0 | 90.6 | 81.4 |
| 28 | Western University | Canada | 61.0 | 61.9 | 100.0 | 89.2 | 81.3 |
| 29 | Griffith University | Australia | 81.2 | 74.5 | 85.8 | 78.3 | 81.0 |
| 30 | The University of Queensland (UQ) | Australia | 77.1 | 81.3 | 84.5 | 81.1 | 80.9 |
| 31 | Trinity College Dublin (TCD) | Ireland | 93.8 | 83.1 | 81.2 | 66.1 | 80.6 |
| 32 | The University of Auckland | New Zealand | 77.7 | 84.3 | 89.2 | 73.2 | 80.5 |
| 33 | McGill University | Canada | 67.8 | 75.5 | 93.7 | 81.1 | 80.3 |
| 34 | University College Cork (UCC) | Ireland | 86.4 | 65.6 | 86.9 | 72.1 | 80.2 |
| 35 | University of Gothenburg | Sweden | 78.2 | 55.4 | 91.9 | 78.3 | 80.1 |
| 36= | McMaster University | Canada | 75.6 | 59.7 | 91.7 | 79.3 | 80.0 |
| 36= | The University of New South Wales (UNSW) | Australia | 79.7 | 94.2 | 83.6 | 72.1 | 80.0 |
| 38= | Queensland University of Technology (QUT) | Australia | 90.6 | 72.6 | 83.4 | 67.4 | 79.7 |
| 38= | The University of Nottingham | United Kingdom | 72.9 | 71.2 | 87.0 | 82.0 | 79.7 |
| 40 | Columbia University | United States | 69.0 | 72.4 | 89.5 | 82.8 | 79.6 |
| 41 | University of Ulster | United Kingdom | 76.0 | 82.2 | 88.0 | 72.1 | 79.1 |
| 42 | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University | Hong Kong | 82.0 | 79.6 | 83.9 | 71.0 | 79.0 |
| 43 | National Taiwan University (NTU) | Taiwan | 69.3 | 78.5 | 91.4 | 75.3 | 78.7 |
| 44 | Pennsylvania State University | United States | 70.4 | 63.2 | 91.0 | 79.3 | 78.5 |
| 45= | New York University (NYU) | United States | 78.9 | 69.5 | 83.4 | 75.3 | 78.2 |
| 45= | University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) | United States | 74.9 | 61.9 | 87.9 | 77.3 | 78.2 |
| 47= | Lund University | Sweden | 66.9 | 67.8 | 91.9 | 78.3 | 77.9 |
| 47= | The University of Sheffield | United Kingdom | 83.0 | 60.6 | 86.5 | 69.8 | 77.9 |
| 49 | University of Western Sydney | Australia | 63.6 | 81.3 | 90.0 | 78.3 | 77.7 |
| 50 | University of South Australia (UniSA) | Australia | 77.8 | 77.3 | 88.9 | 66.1 | 77.6 |
