MIT of the USA again tops the QS ranking of the best university in the world

The American Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) leads for the twelfth consecutive year the classification of the best universities of the world published on Tuesday by the British firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

The University of Cambridge remains in second place, followed by the University of Oxford, which moves up one position, while Harvard advances from fifth to fourth place and Stanford loses two steps, to fifth place.

In Spain, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is the best-placed center, in position 149, while the Brazilian University of Sao Paulo is the first Latin American center, in position number 85.

In an online press conference, QS Vice President Ben Sowter highlighted that this year it has applied “the biggest methodological change” to the list of higher education centers since it began to be drawn up in 2004.

Among the new criteria, the metric of “sustainability”, which evaluates the contribution of each university to reduce its environmental impact, and the weight of the “international research network”, which rewards collaboration with centers in other countries, as well as the “reputation among employers”.

On the other hand, the importance of the ratio between academic staff and number of students decreases, as well as that of “academic reputation”.

Under this methodology, 75% of the African universities in the ranking have improved their note, the “Arab region continues to be increasingly competitive” and Australia has managed to have three universities in the top 20 on the list for the first time.

79% of Chinese institutions have improved their position in terms of “quotes” academic, while the American Berkeley, world leader in sustainability, manages to enter the “top 10″, according to QS.

In recent years, with the increasing importance of higher education rankings, “we have seen how some universities have adapted to what we are doing, they have responded to the metrics that we include in our rankingsSowter noted.

Some centershave taken internationalization more seriously, in places where it was historically difficult to do so“, held.

“Universities have taken a more serious stance about their reputations, become better at communication, and have focused more on being selective about the research they conduct and its potential impact.”, added the vice president of QS.

Asked about the possibility that some centers try to improve their position in the lists by paying prestigious researchers to register at that university, even though they carry out their main work in another, Sowter stated that “the place where such a tactic, if it is taking place, would have the greatest effect is in citation indicators”.

The vice president explained that the QS classification uses the Scopus scientific citation database, produced by the academic publisher Elsevier.

“Elsevier is doing a lot of work to ensure the continued accuracy of its data. They have editorial boards and quality controls, they are working hard to ensure that what is published is genuine.”, he stressed.

Source: EFE