Brazilian Universities Retain Lead in Latin American Ranking

The 2016 edition of the QS University Rankings: Latin America sees Brazilian universities retain their dominance of the table. Brazil’s Universidade de Sao Paulo and Universidade Estadual de Campinas retain their positions as the region’s top two, joined by the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Universidade de Brasilia within the top 10. Overall, Brazilian universities account for 76 of the 300 Latin American universities featured in the ranking, comfortably more than any other nation.

While Chile’s Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile holds onto third place, Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico climbs two positions to rank fourth – swapping places with the Universidad de Chile. It’s also a good year for Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM), which rises from 9^th to 7^th. The only other nation to feature in the top 10 is Colombia, with Universidad de Los Andes in 8^th place and Universidad Nacional de Colombia climbing three places to 10^th.

After Brazil, Mexico is the second most-represented nation in the ranking, with 45 entries – ahead of Colombia, with 41. Argentina makes 34 appearances, led by the Universidad de Buenos Aires, which is now just outside the top 10, having climbed from 15th to 11th this year. Chile has 30 featured universities, and Peru 17.

Also featured are Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela – bringing the total number of nations covered to 20.

First published in 2011, the QS University Rankings: Latin America aims to celebrate and track the strengths and progress of leading universities in the region. It is compiled using a methodology which draws on eight performance indicators: academic reputation, employment reputation, faculty/student ratio, papers per faculty, citations per paper, proportion of staff with a PhD, online impact and international research network (a new measure for 2016).