THE-WUR Ranking: Thanks to its commercial impact and quality of teaching, UniPd remains among the Top 250

27.09.2023

The results of the World University Ranking prepared by the international ranking agency Times Higher Education (THE-WUR), one of the most prestigious and internationally recognized agencies of its kind, have been released today Wednesday 27 September 2023. For the third consecutive edition, the agency confirms the University of Padua top performance at a global level by placing it in the 201-250 range. Such results come despite the increase in the number of universities evaluated, which grew from 1799 in the 2023 edition to 1904 in this most recent one.

For its ranking, THE selects universities and ranks them based on performance indicators grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment), Research (volume, income and reputation), Citations (research influence), Industry income (knowledge transfer) and International outlook (staff, students and research). The data largely comes from databases of scientific publications or from questionnaires submitted to academics and companies, as well as precise data provided by the selected universities themselves.

Overall scores achieved by the University of Padua rose from previous years with noted improvements in research and industry income. Industry income is increasingly becoming a priority for universities and students. It indicates the commercial impact of an institution's research, which is itself a reflection of the industrial value of the research.

Within the Citation indicator, the University gained 69 positions moving from 299th to 230th place globally by scoring 84.1 out of 100 that confirms the quality and bibliometric impact recognized for its scientific production. Evaluating research productivity, academic reputation and income, University gained 16 positions in the Research indicator moving from 286th to 270th place globally. Finally, with reference to the Industry income indicator, the University gained 204 positions, jumping from 505th position to 301st position worldwide.

At a national level, the University of Padua occupies fourth position out of the 56 Italian universities considered.

University of Padua Rector Daniela Mapelli remarks, ”These results are a reward that reflect the strength of our scientific research, innovation in teaching, and depth of our third mission. The rankings issued by this highly respected agency, not only provides information on the relative positioning of other universities, but they also help us to evaluate the effectiveness of our policies. This year, I am particularly pleased with the recognition received for our high quality of research. The University of Padua placed first in Italy in terms of the number of departments of excellence according to the MUR ranking, and received outstanding results for projects funded by ERC Starting Grants.  By adapting to the needs of society and in reaction to the demands of the marketplace, we continue to place great emphasis on the quality of our educational offer.  While doing so, we also focus on giving back to our community. Thanks to this year’s inauguration of the Museum of Nature and Mankind, one of the largest university museums in Europe, we can share more treasures found in Padua with the world.”