UOC continues to head the list of online universities for research according to the CYD Ranking

According to the 2021 CYD Ranking, which assesses Spanish universities with performance indicators, the UOC is still the leading online university for research. The study also notes that the UOC has consolidated the positions achieved last year, obtaining the highest assessment for 10 of the indicators. The ranking assesses 77 Spanish universities, which account for 89.5% of the 86 institutions offering bachelor’s degrees: all 48 public universities and 29 of the 38 private universities.

Of the 10 high-performance indicators, three were for research (one more than last year), which positions the UOC as the best online university in this category. In particular, it has green lights in highly-cited and interdisciplinary publications and in standardized impact of the publications. It also obtains five average-performance indicators in external research funds (cleared and won), publications per faculty member, postdoctoral staff and accredited research stages.

This accomplishment reflects the University's commitment to research, research conducted by over 500 researchers in 51 research groups, 2 research centres (the IN3 and the eHealth Center), a learning innovation centre (the eLearn Center) and the Doctoral School.

According to this ranking, the UOC has three other high-performance indicators in teaching and learning, like last year. Specifically, it obtained green lights in success rate and in percentage of bachelor's and master's degree students from other autonomous communities, coinciding with the 2019 results.

The UOC also has two high-performance indicators in knowledge transfer: in income from licences and in income from continuous training, and obtains average-performance indicators for publications with companies and for the number of spin-offs, one more than those achieved last year. These results reflect the work done by the University in recent years to create closer cooperation ties with business enterprises, other universities and R&I entities, in line with the third objective that all universities must achieve: knowledge and technology transfer to their environment.

As regards its international outlook, the UOC receives a high-performance indicator in foreign faculty members. It also obtains an average-performance indicator in international publications.

The CYD Ranking also assesses universities' contribution to regional development. The UOC achieves a high-performance indicator in regional publications.

The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona comes first in the general classification

In the general classification, the 2020 CYD Ranking notes that the greatest number of highest-performance indicators is obtained by the following universities: Autònoma de Barcelona, Autónoma de Madrid, Navarra, Pompeu Fabra, Carlos III de Madrid, Ramon Llull, Pontificia Comillas, Barcelona, Rovira i Virgili, Deusto, Politècnica de Catalunya, Internacional de Catalunya, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Girona and València - Estudi General.

The five autonomous communities with more than 20 indicators from the highest-performance group are Navarre, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Madrid and the Valencian Community.

Eighth edition of the CYD Ranking

The goal of this study is to endow the Spanish university system with greater transparency, applying a multidimensional approach. The CYD Foundation (Conocimiento y Desarrollo, "Knowledge and Development" in Spanish) was created in 2002 as a business initiative convinced of the important role played by the universities in the country's economic and social development. Its goal is to analyse and promote the contribution made by Spanish universities to development, to foster entrepreneurship in society, and to broaden the ties between the university and the corporate world.