(Little) research weighs: 80% of Italian universities lose competitiveness

The international ranking of Italian universities is deteriorating. This is stated by the 2025 edition of the "Global 2000" ranking of the Center for World University Rankings (Cwur), released today, which analyses more than 21 thousand universities around the world, identifying the best 2 thousand.

The specific weight of our academic system decreases compared to 12 months ago. This is both because the tricolour presence drops from 67 to 66, and because 80% deteriorates: only ten universities are advancing, three are stable and 53 are falling back. This is essentially due to a loss of competitiveness in the field of research, which accounts for 40% of the basket, while the remaining 60% depends on education (25%), employability (25%) and the quality of teaching staff (10%).

All this in a global context which, despite the crusade launched by the Trump administration, still sees Harvard excel. But which records China's overtaking the United States with 346 representatives on the list against 319 whereas last year the ratio was 324 to 329.

Starting with Italy, another fact that leaps to the eye is that of the 66 institutions belonging to the top 2,000 only 14 see their research productivity indices rise as opposed to the 52 that suffer a decline. The best university is still La Sapienza di Roma, but down one position: 125th instead of 124th. The capital's university loses in terms of the quality of education, teaching staff and research, but improves in the employability indicator. Behind it again is Padua, which drops five places to 178th. The third in the ranking (Milan Statale) loses just as much, becoming 191st, ahead of the Alma Mater of Bologna (204th) and Turin, which climbs three places from 245th to 242nd. The Italian top ten is completed by four universities in the 200-300 bracket (Naples Federico II, which improves by ten places, Florence, which loses seven, and the tandem of Genoa and Pisa, which remain stable with respect to 2024), followed by Pavia (327th). A picture that Cwru president Nadim Mahassen commented as follows: "While several countries place the development of education and science at the top of their agenda, Italy is struggling to keep up. Without more substantial funding and more effective strategic planning, Italy risks falling further behind in the rapidly changing global academic landscape'.

Moving on to the overall ranking, the global top ten is confirmed as an (almost exclusive) affair of the USA. In fact, for the fourteenth year in a row, Harvard is the best university in the world, ahead of two other private US institutions, MIT and Stanford, while Cambridge and Oxford in the UK, in fourth and fifth place respectively, are the highest ranked public higher education institutions in the world. The rest of the global top ten is completed by five other private US academies: Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale and Chicago.