It is our great pleasure to announce that the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE) had published the World University Rankings 2018, where Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies is positioned as the first Italian university among the world’s 200 best universities. The School has greatly improved its positioning, moving from 190^th in 2016 up to 155^th in the present year.

The Rector of Sant’Anna School, prof Pierdomenico Perata, commented the news: “It is a remarkable result, achieved mainly thanks to the improvements of our School’s performance in terms of publications and respective quotations. Until three years ago, the School was not represented in any rankings: a real problem for Sant’Anna’s credibility, both at national and international level. After entering the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, Sant’Anna School was also listed in the QS Ranking, obtaining very good positioning. The advancement of this year in the THE Ranking confirms the excellency of our work: the increasing number of scientific publications had the effect of raising our results in the system for the evaluation of the quality of research (VqR), and has prompted our visibility in rankings.”

The THE Ranking has been compiled on the basis of macro indicators grouped in five categories: training, research, number of quotations, internationalisation, technology transfer activities. For each category, analysts identified a number of additional indicators. The final ranking was drawn up also taking into account the size of the universities and the national context, to make the evaluation more homogeneous.