For First Time, a Brazilian University Loses Top Spot in Latam

By Richard Mann, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – For the first time, Chile leads the Latin America University ranking published by The Times Higher Education in its fourth edition of Latin America University Rankings.

The Pontificia Universidade Católica de Chile (“Pontifical Catholic University of Chile”) outperforms two important Brazilian institutions as a result of the increase in institutional revenue, research, and industry.

It takes the place previously held by Universidade de Campinas, Brazil, since 2017, now dropping to third place. The Universidade de São Paulo remains in second place.

Brazil remains the country with the largest number of universities, registering a significant increase with 52 universities on the list, against 43 the previous year.

It is worth noting that not only Campinas University scored lower but also several other Brazilian institutions ranked lower by the impact of mentions this year, suggesting that the country should pay more attention to the quality of its research to avoid further decline in the future.

Chile is not only home to the region’s leading university but is the country with the second-most overall presence, with 30 listings, an increase from 26 the previous year.

In general, Chilean universities improved their institutional revenue scores by academic staff, but several of the country’s representatives experienced a drop in their teaching reputation score and scholarly citations criterion.

Colombia overtakes Mexico as the third most represented country, with 22 institutions compared to 19. Colombia’s three main representatives remained stable or improved.

Colombia’s National University climbed nine positions to 22nd, boosted by its improved score for institutional income by academic staff and citation impact.

However, several other institutions in lower positions have dropped, mainly due to the decline in teaching scores and research reputation.

Mexico is the only country that has seen a decrease in the number of listed institutions, with 21 representatives overall, against 22 last year. The fact that the most prestigious universities remained stable or rose in rank is encouraging.

The Instituto de Tecnologia de Monterrey (“Monterrey Institute of Technology”) remained in the fifth position, and the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (“Autonomous Metropolitan University”) climbed eight places to 18th, due to higher scores in scholarly citations; however, like Colombia, several institutions with lower ratings have dropped, often due to declines in reputation scores in teaching and research and scholarly citations.

The Universidad Austral da Argentina (“Austral University of Argentina”) is the country’s main representative, rising from 51-60 to 27th position as a result of improved ratings for reputation in research and scholarly citations.

The entry of the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires – ITBA (“Institute of Technology of Buenos Aires”) in the 61-70 range was also well received.

However, five other Argentinian institutions have dropped since the previous year. All of these were given a lower score for institutional revenue in the previous year, and most were given a lower score for citations.

2019 rank          2018 rank

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Chile
1                       3

University of São Paulo
Brazil
2                      2

University of Campinas
Brazil
3                     1

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

Brazil
4                     7

Monterrey Institute of Technology
Mexico
5                    5

Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP)
Brazil
6                   4

University of Chile
Chile
7                   6

Federal University of Minas Gerais
Brazil
8                  9

University of the Andes, Colombia
Colombia
9                  8

São Paulo State University (UNESP)
Brazil
10                 11

Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
Brazil
11                 10

Federal University of Santa Catarina
Brazil
12                14

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
13               12

National Autonomous University of Mexico
Mexico
14              13

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