UC escalates to 103rd place in the world in the prestigious British ranking

The prestigious British ranking places the Catholic University among the best universities in the world, after evaluating nearly 2,500 institutions. Its strengths continue to be its reputation among academics and among employers, in addition to its high employability rate.

The UC rose 18 positions compared to the previous year. With this “leap” it is situated in the top 7% of large university institutions. Photo: Directorate of Communications.

The 20th version of the QS World University Rankings 2024 study ranked UC 103rd in the world. This is a “big leap” in the international positioning of the squad, an increase of 18 positions compared to the previous year (121). Considering the institutions analyzed, UC is in the top 7% of the ranking .

This time QS analyzed 2,462 universities from 104 countries (501 more institutions than in the previous version) and 1,499 were listed. Of these, 25 institutions are Chilean. In addition, in this new version there are 83 institutions that had not been ranked before.

UC’s favorable position is based primarily on its reputation, both among academics and employers. The results of these surveys place our campus in 38th place in academic reputation, two positions higher than the previous year, and 11th in reputation among employers, eight places above last year, worldwide.

Worldwide, this 2024 ranking is once again headed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) , followed by the University of Cambridge (No. 2) and Oxford (No. 3). Harvard moves up one position, from No. 5 to No. 4, while Stanford drops from No. 3 to No. 5. This year, two institutions enter the select group of the top 10 in the world: the University of Singapore (in No. #8) and the University of California, Berkeley (#10).

At the Latin American level , the best positioned institution is the University of Sao Paulo , ranking 85th in the world. It is followed by the Autonomous University of Mexico in position 93, and the University of Buenos Aires , in No. 95. This last institution, along with the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, are the only Latin American universities in the top 200 that have dropped positions compared to the previous year. Other Latin American universities in the top 200 of the world QS are UC (No. 103), Universidad de Chile (No. 159), Tec Monterrey (No. 184) and Universidad de Los Andes de Colombia (No. 198).

UC in the top 7% of large university institutions
According to Rector Ignacio Sánchez, these results are a great joy for the university community and for Chile, since it shows continuous progress in practically all areas, from academic training, student employability and scientific preparation and links with the environment.

“I want to highlight that this time around 2,500 institutions were evaluated, which means that the Catholic University is in the top 7% of large university institutions. This has been persistently improving and advancing in the last ten years, with a continuous growth in the quality of the institution”, underlines the highest academic authority of the campus.

Likewise, Sánchez points out that the results show great commitment and work from the entire community, teachers, students, researchers, as well as professionals and administrative staff, which allow processes to be carried out in the best way. and that the presence of the university in the academic environment of our country stands out day by day.

“The results show a great commitment and work of the entire university community, of professors, students, researchers, as well as professionals and administrative staff”- Rector Ignacio Sánchez

“At the national level, great leadership has also been achieved, which has been demonstrated in the Latin American ranking , where, with other indicators, it shows that we continue to lead the region for nearly six years,” says the rector.

In summary, he says, this is great news “that commits us to continue working with dedication and persistence, to continue attracting the best students, the best professors, to make this university a place where science, arts and humanities in the best way”.

For his part, Provost Guillermo Marshall states: “We are proud of UC’s outstanding position in the new global QS ranking , which it has achieved thanks to its great reputation both among academics and employers. In addition to that, the good employability results of our graduates and the efforts of our institution to advance in sustainability have contributed to this important recognition”.

“We are proud of the outstanding position of UC in the new global QS ranking, which it has achieved thanks to its great reputation both among academics and employers”-Provost Guillermo Marshall

The British agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) has produced the QS World University Rankings since 2004. It is one of the most internationally recognized and used university lists. In addition to this, QS has developed other reports at the area level ( QS World University Rankings by subject) and at the regional level (such as the QS Latin American University Rankings ), using slightly different methodologies than the world report.

This year, QS made important changes to the methodology of its global list, adding three new indicators to the six already existing (academic reputation, reputation among employers, teacher/student ratio, citations per teacher, percentage of international professors, and percentage of international students). ). The new indicators considered starting this year are: international research network, employment / employability results, and sustainability.

What about indicators?
All the indicators analyzed by the QS agency are normalized and expressed in relative scores ranging from 0 to 100. These are:

. The reputation indicators are associated with the surveys applied by QS to academics and employers around the world. In the current version, more than 151,000 responses from academics and more than 99,000 responses from employers from various countries were considered.

. The “citations per professor” indicator measures the average number of citations obtained by each member of the academic staff based on the publications indexed in SCOPUS. This metric seeks to estimate the impact and quality of scientific work produced by universities.

. The teacher per student indicator and the percentages of academics and international students are prepared based on information provided by the institutions themselves.

. The international research network ( IRN ) is one of the new indicators considered in the current version of the ranking. This indicator assesses the richness and diversity of an institution’s international research partnerships.

. The results in employability ( employment outcomes) is a new indicator that seeks to measure the capacity of institutions to ensure a high level of employability for their graduates, while nurturing future leaders who will have an impact in their respective fields.

. The sustainability indicator is extracted from the QS Sustainability Ranking and seeks to assess the social and environmental impact of universities as centers of education and research.

It is important to mention that the world QS ranking has a different methodology than the Latin American QS ranking, although some of the indicators used are the same, others differ. This is why, when analyzing the position of Latin American universities in the world QS ranking, the same results as the regional version of the QS ranking are not reached.