The Spanish university system has lost weight in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), better known as the Shanghai ranking, which measures the thousand best universities in the world in terms of scientific production. Numerically, five years ago there were 40 campuses in total and now only 30 appear. From the publication of 2025 to that of 2026, eight Spanish universities have jumped (among them Carlos III and Lleida), although two new ones have entered (Juan Carlos I and Valladolid).
The Spanish system, quite atomized, is the one that has been most affected of the European systems, some of which have also lost steam with one or two universities left off the ARWU list. It should be noted that there are some 20,000 universities in the world with recognized teaching and research, and to be among the first thousand is to belong to the 5% of the best in the indicators that Shanghai measures, basically scientific production (it counts if there are professors with a Nobel Prize or the number of citations of articles). To be among the top 200 in the world is to rub shoulders with the top 1%.
Appearing in international rankings means important international exposure that is linked to attracting excellent teachers and students from anywhere in the world. Spain, however, has the handicap of economic remuneration for researchers and teachers, since, in comparison, between three and four times less is invested than in their counterparts in the same position, according to data from the Conference of Rectors (CRUE).
The University of Barcelona (UB) is the only Spanish university that is in that 1%, being among the top 200 in the world (range 151-200), a position that it has only abandoned once in the last ten years.
The rest of the national system is made up of two groups, the header and the tail. They clearly present opposite directions in this 2026 edition that evaluates the performance of 2025. In the leading group there are 14 entities among the top 600 positions in the world that consolidate or ascend in their position. Behind the UB, the UAB and the Complutense have moved up the ranks and are now in 201-300, gaining place over Valencia, which has fallen one position (301-400).
In addition, Navarra (the only private one among the Spanish ones), Zaragoza and the Polytechnic of Madrid have risen in positions. The rest maintain the rank, with the exception of Pompeu Fabra, which has dropped to 401-500 in the world.
In the tail platoon, between 600 and 1,000, the movement is mostly downward. Murcia, Alcalá, Oviedo, Salamanca, Rovira Virgili, Alicante and Vigo go down. In this group only Jaume I, from Castellón (801-900), rises. And, as mentioned, eight jump from the list: Balearic Islands, Carlos III, Cádiz, Cantabria, Córdoba, Jaén, Lleida and Las Palmas.
For the rector of the UAB, Javier Lafuente, these rankings serve to make visible the work that professors and researchers do every day, taking into account the difficulty of competing with large Anglo-Saxon universities. “Our position allows us to attract and retain talent and that good international students, whose scholarships depend on indicators like these, choose us,” he says with satisfaction.
Going down the ranks or leaving the Shanghai list does not always mean having obtained a lower performance in the indicated indicators compared to the previous year. The entry of new campuses introduces a higher level of competitiveness. That is one of the factors that push some countries to encourage mergers between their universities.
In any case, the difficulty of resisting in the rankings will force the Spanish administrations to reflect on the financing distribution system, if the international indicator is considered as a relevant element. This is what happens in Catalonia, with three universities remaining in the top 500 (UB, UAB, UPF) and one in the 701-800 (UPC) that has remained this year (and for technological universities this ranking is less relevant since it does not consider innovation). But the URV (801-900) and Girona (901-1000) have fallen, while Lleida has been left out of Shanghai.
The performance of universities is conditioned by the international panorama. China's strength is overwhelming: it gains 14 universities and is the country with the largest number of campuses (257), above the United States (187). China is counted in a broad sense (the report adds the continental area, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau). The new campuses enter the lower or middle bands and, course by course, they climb towards higher positions, although they have not yet conquered the top. Among the top 20 in the world, 14 are from the United States, two from the United Kingdom and only one from China (Tsinghua).
And that also happens with other Europeans. Compared to the 257 universities that China has, Switzerland has 9. But Switzerland positions 5 of its 9 in the top 100 and China, 16.
Since the 1990s, the Chinese Government has been applying a sustained policy of public resources in a relatively small group of universities and strategic disciplines, especially promoting scientific production, which is what this ranking measures. More than seven out of ten disciplines of the best-funded entities (concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu) belong to the scientific-technological and health fields, fields closely related to the bibliometric indicators that evaluate this and other international rankings.
