UPF is considered the University with the highest performance in Spain, according to the fourth edition of the 2017 CYD Ranking, conducted by the CyD Knowledge and Development Foundation, an organization that considers universities as being basic for the economic and social development of the country.

The ranking has reviewed 69 universities in the Spanish State, both public and private, and 1,741 bachelor’s and master’s degrees, belonging to a total of seventeen areas of knowledge.

It is based on a total of 33 institutional indicators, split into five categories: Teaching and learning, Research, Knowledge transfer, International outreach, and Contribution to regional development.

Pompeu Fabra University has positioned 26 of the 33 indicators (78.8%) in the high performance category, and ostensibly improves on the results of the previous edition, when it placed 22 out of 32 (68.8%) indicators in this highest category.

Thus, as in the 2016 edition, UPF becomes the university in the Spanish State with the best overall results, tying with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (also with 26 high performance indicators), and ahead of the University of Navarra, with 22.

Performance results are not absolute, but relative, as they are established in comparison with the data for all participating universities and are weighted according to the size of the institutions.

26 high performance indicators, spread across five ‘dimensions’

Of the 33 indicators studied, UPF obtains high performance in 26, on a scale that is completed with the items of average performance, reduced performance and with no data.

The University stands out especially in the field of International outreach, in which high-performance is obtained in all of the indicators studied (six out of six): they are bachelor’s degree courses taught in a foreign language, master’s degree courses taught in a foreign language, student mobility, foreign lecturers, international doctoral theses, and international publications.

In the field of Research, it achieves high performance in nine of the ten indicators analysed: external research funds (settled), external research (awarded), publications per lecturer, normalized impact of publications, highly cited publications, post-doctorates, average number of periods of external assessment of research, and lecturers with civil servant contract without periods of externally assessed research.

In Knowledge transfer, six of the eight indicators score high performance: private funds, publications jointly with enterprise, patents granted per lecturer, patent applications made with private companies, and publications cited in patents.

In Teaching and learning, in four out of six: bachelor’s degree graduation rate, master’s degree graduation rate, bachelor’s degree normative graduation rate in the expected time, and master’s degree normative graduation rate in the expected time.

Finally, in Regional contribution (one out of three): regional publications

Seven indicators did not obtain high performance: students from other autonomous regions on bachelor’s degrees, students from other autonomous regions on master’s degrees, artistic production, spin-offs, income from licences, internships in companies of the region, and regional research funds.

A practical interactive tool that can be adapted to needs

The ranking by the Knowledge and Development Foundation, which uses the philosophy of the EC’s U-Multirank, made on the basis of relative indicators, aims to be an interactive and comparative tool where it is the user who seeks and selects the universities based on categories that s/he deems important.

It is designed to provide information and decision criteria both for future students, university administrators, researchers, public authorities, companies and other social stakeholders wishing to establish links with a university.

This year’s ranking increases the number of items analysed with respect to the previous edition, both insofar as the number of universities (from 63 to 66), areas of knowledge (from 14 to 17, as civil engineering, industrial engineering and chemical engineering have been added) and indicators (from 32 to 33), that allow identifying the levels of performance, both by universities and fields of knowledge.

The data included in the analysis come from various sources, with the aim of facilitating broad and comprehensive information: data provided by the institutions directly, data from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, bibliometric and patent data.