Six Portuguese universities are firmly in the oldest global list ranking the world’s 1000 best universities, known as the Shanghai Ranking, published this Tuesday. These are Lisbon, Porto, Minho, Aveiro, Coimbra and the new University of Lisbon.
If the ranking is limited to the top 500, there are the universities of Lisbon, Porto, Minho and Aveiro, which were ranked last year. What is new is that these four have joined this year, the University of Coimbra, rising in status. In the 2022 edition, Coimbra was ranked between 501st and 600th.
The balance in the top 500 has, in fact, been consolidated since 2021. There were three that year: Lisbon, Porto and Minho (with poles in Braga and Guimarães), but not Aveiro (which was in 2022).
This year, the University of Lisbon and the University of Porto are placed in the same position, in the gap between the 201st and 300th best institutions of higher education. Minho, Coimbra and Aveiro are in the same range from 401st to 500th.
Extending this range to the top 1000, it also includes Universidad Nova de Lisboa, which was already in the top 500 in the 2019 edition, but this year is ranked between 601 and 700.
The list, published in China by independent firm Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, traditionally consisted of 500 universities, but now includes more institutions, extending the ranking to the world’s top 1,000. This year 2500 universities were evaluated.
For the classification, six indicators are taken into account, including the number of graduate students or professors awarded the Nobel Prize and departments (Nobel Prize for Mathematics). Published in journals Science This Nature.
Throughout the 21 editions of this ranking, which was created in 2003, Harvard University has always topped the podium. This year, the top 10 was dominated by eight North American institutions, with Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in second and third, respectively.
The University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom are ranked fourth and seventh respectively. Two years ago, Cambridge was third best, then overtaken by MIT.
from other latitudes
In Europe, the University of Paris-Saclay in France is ranked 15th and the University of Zurich is ranked 20th. Universities of other latitudes start from 22nd position. The position is occupied by Tsinghua University in China this year, followed by the University of Toronto (Canada) and the University of Tokyo at the 24th and 27th positions respectively.
China also has Peking University in the world’s top 30 (ranked 29) and, overall, leads the list of countries with the highest number of universities in the top 1000 ranking with 191 places on that list. (Not counting with Macau, Hong Kong or Taiwan).
Among the top 1000 universities, the US has 187 and the UK has 64. India has 15 and Russia 9. In Europe, Germany and Italy stand out in the top 1000 with 45 and 42 places respectively. Spain 38 and France 27 are the best. Greece is on a par with Portugal, managing to place six universities on this list, which is published every year.
