Rankings

CEU San Pablo, CEU Cardenal Herrera and Abat Oliba CEU universities improved the results obtained in the QS Stars Rating (2025-2030) with respect to the previous year, obtaining 5 stars -the highest rating- in all the categories evaluated: teaching, facilities, academic program strength (Veterinary UCH), global interaction, employability, good governance, social impact, diversity, equality and inclusion, and academic development. 

QS Stars is an evaluation system to which numerous universities around the world voluntarily submit themselves in order to accredit their compliance with the demanding quality standards set by QS itself.

The CEU Universities have once again been recognized in this ranking, this time thanks to the international diversity of their student body.

Of all the universities worldwide that applied to be included in the QS World University Rankings, only 1,501 demonstrated a sufficient level to appear in the classification. Its methodology is based on the analysis of six factors, each weighted differently, that determine the overall quality of the universities assessed: academic level, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, number of citations received by researchers’ publications, proportion of international faculty, and proportion of international students.

Regarding the national ranking, in 2026 we achieved 5th place among the 38 public and private universities that qualified for inclusion. Likewise, at the global level, we reached position 319 out of a total of 1,501 universities.

CEU Universities has been awarded its presence for the first time in the international ranking prepared by the British firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which specialises in the analysis of higher education institutions. The three universities in the group have made their first appearance in this ranking by placing themselves among the top 25 universities in Spain. 

To do so, they have been evaluated according to a series of factors: academic level, reputation among employees, student-school ratio, number of citations received by the publications of their researchers and the proportions of foreign students and professors. 

This positioning is a recognition of the firm commitment of CEU Universities in the process of internationalisation of their classrooms, which already manages to attract 30 % of foreign students to their studies. This percentage has led CEU to occupy 4th place among Spanish universities in the QS World University Ranking. 

CEU Universities, conjunto de universidades CEU que agrupa a CEU San Pablo (Madrid), CEU Cardenal Herrera (Valencia, Elche y Castellón) y Abat Oliba CEU (Barcelona), se sitúa en el 4º puesto en el Young University Rankings 2022, entre un total de 32 universidades españolas que han concurrido. Y, a nivel mundial, alcanza el puesto 136, de un total de 790 universidades de 68 países.

Además, CEU Universities es la segunda del territorio nacional en menciones de las publicaciones científicas, y la primera en la proporción de mujeres entre el alumnado (64%). En el apartado de internacionalización se sitúa en 4ª posición, con un promedio de estudiantes internacionales que asciende al 20%.

El ranking que elabora Times Higher Education (THE) analiza las universidades con un máximo de 50 años de antigüedad desde su constitución. Para su clasificación utiliza 13 indicadores vinculados a la misión fundamental de las instituciones: enseñanza, investigación, docencia, transmisión del conocimiento y la internalización, entre otros. Este ranking ofrece una visión de universidades abiertas a la innovación, cualidad especialmente necesaria para salir reforzadas en la era post-Covid.

This ranking assesses the quality of university institutions at an international level in five areas: teaching, research, number of citations in publications written by researchers, internationalisation of staff, students and researchers, and knowledge transfer to the business field.

CEU San Pablo (Madrid), CEU Cardenal Herrera (Valencia, Elche and Castellón) and Abat Oliba CEU (Barcelona), under the name of CEU Universities, ranked 6th among Spanish universities and among the top 500 universities worldwide in the 2021 Ranking, where 1,527 university institutions from 93 countries participated.

We excel in research and internationalisation. In the field of research, we are positioned first among Spanish universities in terms of the quality of citations on scientific publications written by our research staff. In terms of internationalisation of staff, students and researchers, we are placed fourth at national level, with an average of 19% international students, which exceeds 30% at CEU UCH in the Region of Valencia. We also rank among the top ten Spanish universities for the ratio of students per lecturer (11.5) and for the ratio of female to male students (63:37).

THE evaluates higher education institutions internationally by considering five areas: teaching, research, citation impact of their researchers’ publications, internationalisation of staff, students and researchers, and knowledge transfer to the business sector. In total, thirteen parameters are measured, based on data gathered in this edition from sources such as surveys of more than 22,000 academics. In terms of research, the THE World University Ranking has analysed 14.4 million publications and more than 108 million citations over a five‑year period.

In the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (2025), faithful to our Catholic values and expressing a strong commitment to the defense of life, our Universities have achieved 118th place in the Health and Well-Being category among the 1,788 universities that applied to be evaluated in this field. In addition, at the national level, they ranked third out of the 39 Spanish universities that participated.