Released on Monday this week, there are two new Portuguese universities among the top-500 places, these being Aveiro and Minho.
As in previous years Porto and Coimbra universities are also on the ranking, placed between 301st and 400th and 401st and 500th position, respectively.
The best classified national institution is Universidade de Lisboa, which also improved its position in comparison to previous years and is now among the top-200 universities.
The Shanghai Ranking only specifies exact positions of universities in the top 100 spots, after that the institutions are grouped.
Universidade de Lisboa maintains its position as Portugal’s best-placed university on this list, an accolade it has held for the past two years, since it was regarded for the first time as one single institution following its merger with Lisbon Technical College.
This year the institutions is placed in the bottom half of the top-200, having risen from being beneath the 200th spot last year.
However, it is understood, based on indicators provided by the ranking, that Universidade de Lisboa this year comes in at around 160th, which university director António Cruz Serra says is an “excellent result.”
The Shanghai Ranking has been produced every year since 2003 and since day one the US’s Harvard University has taken the number one spot, being classified as the best university in the world by the Chinese institution, followed by Stanford (US).
This year Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) fell for the first time, from third to fifth place, having been overtaken in the ranking by Californian University Berkeley, and by Cambridge University in the UK, which is Europe’s best offering.
Edited by the Center for World-Class Universities, the list is compiled in China and based on six main measuring sticks, including the number of former students, teachers and researchers who have gone on to win Nobel Prizes; the number of highly-regarded scientists, the number of papers published in respected publications such as Nature and Science magazines, and the number of indexed journals.