BARCELONA is once again home to Spain’s best universities, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027.
The University of Barcelona (UB) is still the country’s top institution, moving up to joint 143rd, from joint 145th last year. The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) also climbed, from 183rd to 175th.
It wasn’t all joy for Catalonia though. Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) fell from joint 187th to joint 205th and dropped out of the global top 200, leaving Spain with just two universities in the elite upper group.
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Madrid has no university higher than the Autónoma, in fifth place.
Spain’s best still trail Europe’s heavyweights. Oxford tops the table for a record 11th consecutive year, although MIT finished just 0.1 points behind. Cambridge is fifth and Imperial College London eighth.
ETH Zurich is mainland Europe’s top university at 12th, but it has been overtaken by China’s Tsinghua University. That means the best Asian university now ranks above the best in mainland Europe for the first time.
Germany’s leader, the Technical University of Munich, is 25th. France’s best, PSL, is 57th, and the University of Amsterdam is joint 62nd.
Against its Mediterranean neighbours, Spain does well. Italy’s highest-ranked university, Bologna, is joint 111th, while Rome’s Sapienza is joint 147th, just behind UB.
Portugal’s best, the University of Lisbon, is in the 376–400 band, well below Spain’s top three.
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The biggst winners this year are Asian universities. With the National University of Singapore moving up to 15th, three Asian universities are in the top 15 for the first time.
THE says many Western universities are relying on their strong reputations to make up for weaker research performance.
In total, 59 Spanish universities appear in this year’s table, up from 57 last year, out of 2,297 institutions from 118 countries and territories.
The full list is available on the Times Higher Education website.
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