It is the 6th university in Catalonia and the 20th in Spain. Of the almost 20,000 universities in the world only 1,300 are included in the ranking

For the third consecutive year, the URV has been included in the QS World University Rankings (2022 edition), which has been drawn up since 2004 by the international consultants QS Quacquarelli Symonds to assess the best universities in the world. It is regarded as one of the three most prestigious university rankings in the world alongside the Shangai Ranking (ARWU) and the Times Higher Education (THE).

The URV is now between position 701 and 750 of the approximately 1,300 that are on the list, a position that it shares with the University of the Basque Country and Santiago de Compostela. The University is the 20th in Spain and the sixth of the public and private Catalan universities.

The URV scored highest on the Citations per researcher indicator (41.7 points), which positions it in 333rd place in the global ranking just for this indicator. It is also in the top 500 in terms of the ratio of international students indicator (25.2 points).

QS draws up the ranking on the basis of six indicators: academic reputation, determined by a survey of more than 130,000 academics (40% of the total score); reputation from the point of view of employers, determined by a survey of 75,000 employers on the relation between institution and the employability of the graduates (10%); citations per researcher, which measures the impact of research by dividing the number of citations over a period of five years by the number of lecturers in the institution (20%); the lecturer/student ratio (20%); the ratio of international lecturers (5%); and the ratio of international students (5%).

In the latest edition of the ranking, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) remains in first place for the 10th consecutive year, followed by Oxford, and then Stanford and Cambridge, who share third position.