Politecnico di Milano 38th in the ranking of the best European universities

The podium of the best European universities changes. The former top of the class, Oxford, drops to third place and leaves the top of the ranking to the Zurich Eth. In the middle. in second place, comes Imperial College London, which was fourth the year before. This is according to the 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Europe, which examines the performance of European universities. Among the Italians, it is the Politecnico di Milano, 38th in Europe. In a general picture that sees our country improving its results

Italy has 51 universities ranked, 24 of which are improving, 2 stable and 25 declining. Overall, our country has four universities in the top 100 and 14 in the top 200.
The Politecnico di Milano is Italy's leading university, rising nine places to - as we said - 38th place.
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna (48) ranks second nationally and is the second Italian university to climb 30 places, entering the top 50. The only university with greater growth compared to the previous year is the University of Salento, which rose 65 places to 419.
Sapienza University of Rome ranks third nationwide and, with its 66th place, falls one place.
Also noteworthy is the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (140), which climbs 18 places, entering the European top 150.

Italian universities collectively outperform the European average in half of the indicators measured, excelling particularly in research. The average score for scientific publications per faculty member (Papers per Faculty), a measure of research productivity, is 56.9, almost double the European average. However, the impact of this research, indicated by the metric of citations per scientific publication, (Citations per Paper) is slightly below the European average.

What sets Italy apart is the diversity of its international research collaborations. This is reflected in the high scores on the indicator International Research Network, well above the European average. In addition, the average Academic Reputation score, slightly above the regional average, correlates positively with the country's research standing. Italian universities also excel in student exchange programmes, both in
bound and outbound, again scoring well above the European average.
But let's move on to the shadows. Italy's score for the teacher/student ratio is less than half the European average, highlighting a persistent problem still to be addressed. The limited number of courses taught in English and relatively low investment in internationalisation contribute to Italy's score of only a third of the European average for international faculty. The percentage of international students is marginally higher, but still about one third of the European average.
Italian universities are also below the European average in indicators assessing the employability of graduates. And it is the same Qs that shows us the way when it suggests the need to strengthen links between campus and industry and to improve the job readiness of graduates, particularly important in the age of artificial intelligence.