The UB is once again among the 200 best universities in the world

The University of Barcelona (UB) has once again placed among the top 200 in the world this 2024. In the new edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, better known as the Shanghai ranking, the Catalan center has improved its positions after falling below last year, in the 201-300 range, along with the University of Granada. In addition, the UB is once again the best university in all of Spain, consolidated as the only center that manages to be among the top 200 positions, a leadership it had maintained from 2018 to 2023.

The rest of the Catalan universities also make a place for themselves in the classification. The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) are placed two ranges after the UB (301-400), while the Universitat de Lleida (UdL) and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) are located in the 701-800 segment of the ranking. Finally, in the range from the 801 to the 900 best universities, are the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Universitat de Girona (UdG).

In Spain as a whole, the Shanghai ranking includes a total of 36 universities among the best 1,000 in the world, two fewer than a year ago, leaving out this time the Pablo Olavide of Seville and the Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid. In addition to the UB, UAB and UPF, the ten best Spanish centers are the Universitat de València, located in the 201-300 range, and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Universidad de Granada and the Universidad del País Vasco, in the 301-400 segment. Finally, there are the Universitat Politècnica de València and the Universidad de Sevilla, in the 401-500 range.

Globally, once again, the ranking has been led by American universities, with the top positions occupied by Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "With the funding available to public universities in our country, placing the UB among the 200 best in the world in an environment dominated by centers with more resources than us is an enormously remarkable fact," defends its rector, Joan Guàrdia.

Published since 2003, the Shanghai ranking is one of the most prestigious internationally and focuses on six indicators such as the number of relevant awards like Nobel Prizes, the number of citations of researchers, or the total number of published articles. The ranking, made by Jiao Tong University, analyzes a total of 2,500 centers worldwide and publishes the classification of the best 1,000. The first 100 positions, dominated by the United States, are ordered one by one, and the rest are done in blocks.

Despite US leadership in the first segment, China surpasses the United States in the number of centers entering the ranking. At the European level, excluding the United Kingdom, the top-ranked is Paris-Saclay University, in position number 12, followed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), in position number 21.