Ranking Times Higher Education: The University of Bologna is first in Italy

For the fourth consecutive year, the University of Bologna ranks first among the Italian universities in the World University Rankings by Times Higher Education (THE), one of the most well-known and prestigious international university rankings.

On a global scale, Alma Mater moved up six places, from 161st to 155th, confirming a growth trend that has been ongoing for some time now: in the last three years alone, 17 positions have been climbed.

Among the Italian universities, the University of Bologna is followed by the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa (168th), Sapienza University of Rome (181st) and the University of Padua (201st-250th), Politecnico of Milan (201st-250th), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (201st-250th).

Alma Mater improved its scores in all of the five main indicators which determine the ranking. It improved its performance on the indicators related to the quality of teaching (+6%) and research (+11.3%) and all the parameters related to internationalisation. Alma Mater also records the highest possible score (100 out of 100) in the indicator assessing the quality of PhD degree programmes.

These results confirm the position of the University of Bologna as top 200 in the ranking for the sixth year in a row; considering that there are close to 26 thousand universities in the world, Alma Mater is in the top 1% of the best universities worldwide.

"Alma Mater Studiorum has an enormous yet very important task ahead of it: to strengthen our identity as a great public, open, and inclusive University, while also guaranteeing a high level of quality, even in comparison to less frequented and better-financed international Universities," comments Rector Giovanni Molari. "I thank all the colleagues who, with their generous commitment, make recognitions such as this one come true. We embrace it with joy because it rewards the work of an entire community".