Cwur ranking, 79% of Italian universities get worse. First Sapienza (129th)

A cold shower for Italian universities comes from the latest Cwur rankings. According to the 2026 edition of the Global 2000 edition of the Center for world university rankings, 79% of our universities are worse off than in 2025. The best is still Roma Sapienza, which, however, falls four places to 129th place in a ranking that also sees the American Harvard at the top this time.

In total, there are 66 Italian universities in the ranking drawn up by the UAE-based specialised agency. Of these, only 13 improve their position compared to the previous year, one maintains the same position and 52 lose positions. A decline attributable above all to poor performance in research.

We have already mentioned Sapienza and the four positions lost. Our second home university, Padua, also loses four, coming in at 182nd place, while Milan Statale drops three places to 194th. Behind them we find Bologna (208th place) and Naples Federico II (243rd place). Completing the Italian top ten are the universities of Turin (245th), Florence (273rd), Pisa (293rd), Genoa (294th) and Pavia (335th).

For Nadim Mahassen, president of Cwur, "the decline of Italian universities reflects years of inadequate funding and the devaluation of science and education as public goods. Italian universities struggle to offer high-quality education, to attract and retain talent, and to produce quality research on a large scale. This is not just an academic problem,' he adds, 'but a national one, because the erosion of Italy's higher education system undermines scientific development, innovation and the country's long-term future'

Harvard ranks first worldwide for the 15th consecutive year and is followed by two other private US institutions, MIT and Stanford, while the UK's Cambridge and Oxford, fourth and fifth respectively, are the world's highest ranked public higher education universities. The rest of the world's top ten is completed by private US universities: Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale and Chicago.