A university ranking released this Monday (1st) shows that 45 of the 52 Brazilian universities that make up the list have fallen in position compared to the previous edition.
The conclusion is from a ranking prepared by CWUR (Center for World University Rankings)
The (University of São Paulo) continues to be the , but has dropped one position compared to 2025 and is now ranked 119.
The (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), the second institution mentioned, had a more pronounced drop and fell 15 positions; Now, the Rio de Janeiro university is ranked 346th.
Next comes the (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), which lost ten positions, occupying 379th place.
The (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) remained stable at 476th, but surpassed the Brazilian universities in the ranking, which fell 22 positions.
Now, Universidade Estadual Paulista is ranked 479th. Overall, 87% of Brazilian universities lost positions.
The ranking has been created since 2012. It classifies the two thousand best universities in the world based on four criteria: quality of teaching, employability of alumni, quality of teaching staff and research performance.
- Education: based on the academic success of the university’s alumni, measured relative to the size of the university (25%)
- Employability: based on the professional success of the university’s alumni, measured relative to the size of the university (25%)
- Faculty: measured by the number of faculty members who have received high-level academic distinctions (10%)
- Search:
i) Scientific Production: measured by the total number of scientific articles (10%);
ii) High Quality Publications: measured by the number of scientific articles published in high impact journals (10%);
iii) Influence: measured by the number of scientific articles published in highly influential journals (10%);
iv) Citations: measured by the number of highly cited scientific articles (10%).
Next, at the top of the Brazilian ones, comes UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), in position 508th (down 11 positions); Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo), ranked 621st (down four positions); Fiocruz (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz), which is now in position 682° (lost 14 positions); UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina) is ranked 732nd (lost five positions); UFPR (Federal University of Paraná) now ranks 799th in the general ranking (lost 16 positions).
According to the president of CWUR, the decline of Brazilian universities is a reflection of inadequate funding and the devaluation of science and education. The problem, according to Nadim Mahassen, is not just academic, but national.
“Brazilian universities are struggling to provide high-quality education, attract and retain talent, and produce quality research at scale. The erosion of Brazil’s higher education system harms scientific development, innovation, and the country’s long-term future.”
China surpasses the USA and is now the most represented country in the ranking
China is now the most represented country on the list, with 360 institutions considered the best in the world. The Asian country surpassed the United States, which has 313 universities in the ranking.
You . They are: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale and Chicago.
Completing the top ten positions are Cambridge and Oxford, both in the United Kingdom, which has 89 universities in the ranking. Cambridge remains the best public university in the world for the 13th year in a row.
