The Times Higher Education 2025 (THE) World University Ranking has recognized the University of Barcelona (UB) as the best in Spain in 2025. Ranked 149th, UB obtained 62 points out of 100 in the overall classification in a ranking that assesses the academic excellence of universities worldwide.
The UB is followed by the other two public universities in Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra and Autónoma, which are ranked second and third nationally.
The university with the best score in this ranking is Oxford (UK) followed by MIT in Massachusetts (USA) and Harvard (USA) with 98.5, 98.1 and 97.7 points, respectively.
THE uses a detailed methodology to evaluate universities in five key areas, with 18 performance indicators. These areas are teaching, which includes teaching reputation and ratios such as student/faculty or ratio of PhDs to degrees; the research environment; the quality of research; international outreach and foreign staff; and relationships with industry through project generation, companies or patents.
THE is part of the select group of university rankings, along with QS World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) or the Shanghai Ranking.
In addition to the institutional data provided by the universities, THE uses bibliometric information provided by Elsevier, which evaluates academic production in papers and other publications.