The UPV/EHU remains among the world’s best 400 universities, as announced today in a new issue of the Shanghai Ranking (http://www.shanghairanking.com). This ranking is compiled every year by the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, and right now is one of the internationally recognised evaluation criteria that commands the greatest respect and is the most emblematic in academia. In this ranking, the Basque public university entered the top 500 universities in the world nine years ago, and last year emerged among the top 400. There are only eight universities in Spain ranked in this selected group.

"The Shanghai ranking is a very demanding evaluation that assesses more than 20,000 universities worldwide. At the UPV/EHU we continue to work with dedication and enthusiasm in an increasingly competitive world of higher education and research. To remain among the top 400 universities in the world is a highly significant success that provides us with greater visibility and an excellent reputation internationally. For this reason, we are very proud indeed. I would also like to congratulate in particular all the members of our university community, because our public university is a collective project and so are its achievements,” explained the UPV/EHU’s Vice-Chancellor Eva Ferreira.

This ranking basically measures the impact of the research of the universities as well as their international prestige. The UPV/EHU made its first appearance in this prestigious ranking in 2012.

The first three positions in the ranking are held by the universities of Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge, in that order. With respect to the first ten positions, eight are held by American universities and two by British universities (Oxford, in addition to Cambridge).

The UPV/EHU is located ex aequo between positions 301 and 400. The explanation for this lies in the system for presenting the results that has been established within the index. So there is a strict precedence from highest to lowest in terms of scores between positions 1 and 100. That is followed by a block of 50 universities; then another block with another 50; and after that, up to 500 divided into three blocks of 100 universities each. The universities appear in alphabetical order within each of these blocks. To properly assess the importance of this position, one should remember that there are over 20,000 higher education institutions across the world.

When drawing up this list, which provides an international reference for measuring university excellence, all the universities that have personnel or former students who are Nobel laureates or Fields Medal winners in Mathematics, and which have frequently quoted researchers or papers published in Nature or Science, are taken into consideration. A total of more than 1,300 universities are assessed and the top 500 are published.

Ranking by specialisation

In terms of specialisations, the UPV/EHU manages to position itself in this edition among the top 150 in three disciplines: Metallurgical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Chemistry; and in the top 200 in three others: Food Science and Technology, Materials Science and Engineering, and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

In addition to these featured specialisations, the Basque public university also achieves good positions in Environmental Science and Engineering, Energy Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Agricultural Sciences, Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Education (among the best 300 universities in the world); Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biological Sciences, Public Health, and Political Science (among the best 400); and Computer Science and Engineering, Earth Sciences, Ecology, Biomedical Sciences, and Management (among the best 500).