Universities of Pisa, the Sant’Anna and Normale, are the only Italian institutions to be in the top 200 (155^th and 184^th respectively). Thanks to this global ranking, this places them in the top 100 in Europe which also includes universities in the United Kingdom. The new rankings comprise of more than 1000 universities across 77 countries. At the top there is the University of Oxford followed by the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology tied with Stanford University. Europe and the United Kingdom, continue to be home to the 100 out of the 200 top universities in the world while Asian universities, Chinese in particular, have improved signalling their country’s commitments to investments in research has bolstered results year-to-year. In Europe, the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa have reached their top national rankings. The internal fluctuation in the university system of Pisa: The Normale is ranked second, soon to be associated with the Sant’Anna and the IUSS of Pavia as confirmed by their global competitiveness. “The results flatter us and inspire us to work harder, demonstrating that there are margins for improvements for our two institutions of Pisa. On the one hand, we are very proud of the constant growth year after year of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – a young institution that was founded only 30 years ago. On the other hand, the competitiveness of these rankings push us to raise our bar without sacrificing our core values such as the ability to recognise new talents and appreciate merit” commented the rector of Sant’Anna, Pierdomenico Perata and the Director of the Normale, Vincenzo Barone. 

THE STANDARDS OF THE RANKINGS

The rankings are carried out based on macro indicators grouped under 5 categories: teaching, research, number of citations, internationalisation, transfer of technology and knowledge to the industries. For each category, analysts have identified a series of ulterior indicators. The reshaping of the universities and their national context are taken into consideration in the development of the final rankings in order to make the evaluation as homogenous as possible in reference to the differences between university systems. The “rigorous standards”, as defined by the Times Higher Education’s Editorial Director, Phil Baty, were integrated by the prerequisites of evaluation for every one of the 1000 universities such as the number of publications on international scientific journals by docents and researchers. Sant’Anna and the Normale have received positive evaluations for the five macro indicators especially for their quality of research with particular focus on the number of citations and publications by their docents and researchers.