QS has today published the results of its world ranking, which evaluates the teaching and research capacity of over 900 universities around the globe. UPF has climbed twelve places and is now 283rd in the world ranking, 125th in Europe and 7th at state level.

The QS ranking is drawn up on the basis of six indicators, weighted as follows: academic reputation (40%) is obtained from a survey completed by academics who identify the best universities in their field of expertise; the number of citations (20%) measures the average citations received for articles of by the lecturers of an institution; teacher-to-student ratio (20%); employer reputation (10%), which also obtained via a survey, this time addressed to companies worldwide that evaluate the university institutions that best train professionals; the percentage of international teaching staff over total teaching staff (5%) and the percentage of international students over the total students (5%).

The most competitive Spanish university

UPF leads two of the indicators used for the ranking: it remains the first Spanish university for the number of citations received for articles by researchers and the percentage of international teaching staff, the latter since 2012.

According to QS, the citations indicator is used to “assess universities’ research impact and quality”, whereas for international teaching staff, this indicator measures universities’ “ability to attract students and academics from other nations”.