The UOC remains the best online university in Spain

This is the ninth time the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) has appeared in this prestigious list of the world's best universities, which is produced each year by Times Higher Education (THE). The 2027 edition of the THE ranking has once again named the UOC as the best online university in Spain. It places the UOC in the eleventh group of the best universities in Spain, and, internationally, in the 801-1,000 bracket among the over 2,000 institutions from all over the world that were reviewed. The THE World University Rankings is considered one of the most prestigious and transparent classifications in the field of higher education, rivalled only by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities and the QS World University Rankings.

The prestigious world ranking places the UOC as the top online university in Spain, followed by UNED (Spanish Distance Learning University), in the 1,401-1,600 bracket, and the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), in the 1,601-1,800 bracket. When adding Spain's traditional universities into the mix, only 12 of the country's 58 universities reviewed rank ahead of the UOC. The list is headed by three Catalan institutions: the University of Barcelona, in 143rd position, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in 175th position, and Pompeu Fabra University, in 205th position.

The THE ranking focuses on five areas at each institution

In its assessment of excellence in higher education, the THE ranking evaluates universities in each of the following five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry and international outlook.

The UOC was awarded the following scores in these areas: 18.3 for teaching, 24.2 for research environment, 66.8 for research quality, 35 for industry and 48.3 for international outlook.

As shown in this image, the UOC has almost doubled its research environment score over the past eight years:

Since the ranking's 2025 edition, the UOC's industry score has risen by nearly nine points, returning to the levels achieved ten years earlier, as illustrated in this chart:

The University of Oxford tops the rankings once again this year, followed by MIT.