The UOC breaks into the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and is the only online university included from Spain

Times Higher Education (THE) recently published its latest international league table, which compares the world’s best universities and for the first time included the UOC. This new ranking placed the UOC twelfth highest of the thirty-eight Spanish universities included, making it the only online university to be included from Spain. In the overall ranking of 1,258 universities from around the world, the UOC earned a place in the bracket for positions 601–800.

The THE rankings analyse higher education excellence across five areas in universities: teaching (weighting = 30%), research (30%), citations (30%), international outlook (7.5%) and industry income (2.5%). The UOC’s scores in each of these areas were: 12.8 for teaching, 12.5 for research, 71.3 for citations, 39.8 for international outlook, and 34.9 for industry income.

  Times Higher Education

The THE ranking is considered one of the most prestigious and transparent classifications in the field of higher education, rivalled only by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities and the QS World University Rankings. Regarding other Catalan universities, leading institutions include the Pompeu Fabra University in 135th position, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ranked 145th, the University of Barcelona, which held its position in the 201–250 bracket, the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in the 401–500 bracket, and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, in the 501–600 bracket.

Of the 84 universities in Spain, only 38 appear in the new THE tables, while last year’s ranking included just 31 Spanish universities. The University of Navarra is in the 251–300 bracket, the Autonomous University of Madrid in the 351–400 bracket, and the Complutense University of Madrid in the 401–500 bracket. Also appearing in the THE World University Rankings for the first time were the University of the Balearic Islands, the Universitat Jaume I, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.

The ranking is once again headed by the British universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in first and second place respectively. Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology make up the rest of the top five.