UOC the only Spanish online university ranked by the Times Higher Education in the world's top 600 universities for social sciences

The specialist British education journal Times Higher Education (THE) has just published a new list of the world's top 666 universities in the field of social sciences, including the UOC for the first time. Specifically, it classifies it in the 501-600 bracket out of the total number of institutions analysed in the ranking, which includes 1,258 universities around the world. This makes it the only online university in all of Spain to appear in this classification.

Within the field of social sciences, the ranking classifies the UOC in the sub-areas of sociology, political science and international studies, and communication and social media. Along with the UOC, THE has also included the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University (in the 126-150 bracket) among the best Catalan universities in the field of social sciences, followed by the University of Barcelona and Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) (in the 251-300 bracket).

On a national level, of the 84 universities in Spain, only 29 appear in this list, with the UOC as the only Spanish online university to be included. The Universities of A Coruña, Basque Country, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Valencia, Zaragoza and La Laguna are in the same bracket as the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. 

The ranking, published on Wednesday 17 October, also announced the planet's top 585 universities in the field of economics and business studies, the 428 that lead the field of education, and the best 187 institutions excelling in law.

The UOC is also the only Spanish online university included in the general classification

Not too long ago, on 26 September, the UOC made its début in the Times Higher Education's World University Rankings as the only online university in Spain, taking 12th place among the 38 Spanish universities included in this worldwide classification.

This success was based on an analysis the THE conducts in 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.

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. 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.