U-Ranking, the non-profit project of the BBVA Foundation and IVIE to analyse the Spanish university system, has just released its 2025 report, which shows the results of public (48) and private (24) universities in Spain based on performance in three broad dimensions: teaching, research and innovation, and labour market insertion. In addition to the global ranking, it includes three specific classifications in these three dimensions.

In the last six editions of the U-Ranking, between 2020 and 2025, UPF has come in first position on five occasions with the sole exception of 2024, when it was placed second

In its 13th edition, Pompeu Fabra University ranks first in the global classification: it is considered the highest performing and the most efficient centre with regard to resources management, and therefore, with the highest quality results (adjusted for its size rather than total volume). UPF also leads the Research and Innovation sub-ranking, in both cases, with a global index of 100. In the other two dimensions, it comes among the top 10 for Teaching, and for Labour market insertion, in an intermediate position in the table, with an index of 80.

In the last six editions of the U-Ranking, between 2020 and 2025, UPF has come in first position on five occasions with the sole exception of 2024, when it was placed second.

UPF stands out for several indicators of Research and Innovation and Teaching

The U-Ranking is structured into three dimensions: Teaching, Research and Innovation, and Labour market insertion. The first two include four areas: access to resources, production achieved, quality (especially of results, and in some cases, of resources or processes), and the internationalization of activities, each of which is made up of several indicators. With regard to labour market insertion, it covers three areas: Employment, Adjustment of training to employment, and Income.

Pompeu Fabra University stands out above all for several indicators in the Research and Innovation dimension, such as European research funds, scientific publications, doctoral theses read, and competitive public resources harnessed, all of them in relation to doctoral PDI; the average impact factor and citations per document. In the field of Teaching, it also achieves outstanding results in graduation rate, success rate, suitability for graduation and percentage of international mobility students.

Regarding the data sources used for the list, all are public (SIIU for data on university structure, SABI for economic data, the State Research Agency for research grants awarded, and IUNE for scientific production, among others), while the universities do not send any data to the managers of the ranking.

In addition to the classification by performance and efficiency, the report includes the U-Ranking volume, which classifies universities based on the combined effect of the variables of the results and the size of the institutions. In this case, the list is led by the largest universities in the country, that is, the Complutense of Madrid and the University of Barcelona, in that order.