Shanghai Ranking: the fierce battle for global leadership in knowledge

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWO), better known as the Shanghai Ranking, is an event that is eagerly awaited around the world, with the results announced simultaneously worldwide. It is compiled by Jiao Tong University, located in the densely populated Chinese city and economic capital of Shanghai.  

The scholars responsible for compiling this important and decisive ranking for the global prestige of universities, cities and the countries in which they are located, meticulously examine a total of 2,500 higher education institutions around the world, from which they select 1,000, which they then classify into tiers. The fact that a particular university or institute appears in the ranking gives it a label of prestige, which extends to the locality where it is based and reflects on the reputation of the country to which it belongs. The closer the university in question is to the top 100, the greater its prestige and the competition to gain access to its classes and courses. 

The top 10 remains an Anglo-Saxon monopoly, especially American, with eight universities in the top ten; the other two are Cambridge and Oxford in the United Kingdom. And, of course, having held the top spot for 23 years makes Harvard not only the top university in the United States, but also the most sought-after by students around the world. They are followed, in this order, by Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton, Columbia, Caltech and Chicago, with Cambridge in fourth place and Oxford in sixth. 

If we jump from the table of excellence of these ten to the table of honour of the top 100, the American dominance remains overwhelming: 37 universities, although it should be noted that China also has 13, with Tsinghua and Beijing at the top, and the United Kingdom remains with eight. Another Chinese university, Hong Kong (99), and Stockholm (100) in Sweden have broken into the top 100. It is worth noting that one of the goals set by Chinese President Xi Jinping is to have 50 Chinese universities among the top 100 in the world by 2049, when the People's Republic of China will celebrate its centenary. At present, Tsinghua (18) is the best university in Asia, and Melbourne (38) is the most prestigious in Oceania. 

In addition to the aforementioned University of Stockholm, Europe has managed to place the French universities of Paris-Saclay (13), PSL (34) and Paris Cité (60), the Swiss ETH Zurich (22) and the German universities of Munich (42), Munich Technical University (45), Heidelberg (51) and Bonn (68).  

Spain has 36 institutions among the thousand selected, the same as in 2024, although Valladolid has dropped out of the ranking and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has entered. 

Only one of these, Barcelona, is among the top 200. It is joined in the top fifty by, in order, Valencia, UAB, Autónoma de Madrid, Complutense, UPB Pompeu Fabra, Granada, UPV, Politécnica de Valencia and Seville. 

The ranking is based primarily on the scientific output of the different departments and professors at the institution analysed. Consequently, Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals and other prestigious international awards are taken into account, as well as the number of researchers cited in studies and the number and quality of articles published in prestigious journals such as Science or Nature. 

Unlike in Spain, where the top eight institutions are public, the vast majority of those appearing in the ranking, especially in the top positions, are private, with a markedly meritocratic professional model. Likewise, the financial analysis of the higher education institutions analysed shows a strong increase in public-private collaboration.