Secretaria de Relações Internacionais | Office of International Relations

On Thursday, 9 October 2025, Times Higher Education (THE) released the World University Rankings 2026, evaluating 2,191 institutions from 115 countries and territories. In this edition, the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) was placed among the 1,001–1,200 best universities in the world.

UFSC’s performance in each indicator is presented below, showing the current score and its variation compared with the previous edition.

• Overall: 32.1–35.4
• Teaching: 36.3 (+2.6 points)
• Research Environment: 22.4 (unchanged)
• Research Quality: 40.8 (+0.4 points)
• Industry: 65.5 (–0.7 points)
• International Outlook: 37.0 (+1.1 points)

The ranking evaluates universities across 13 performance indicators, grouped into five core pillars: Teaching, Research Environment, Research Quality, Industry, and International Outlook. UFSC continues to stand out in the Industry pillar, with 65.5 points, reflecting its strong engagement with the productive sector.

Times Higher Education is a British magazine specializing in higher education, internationally recognized for its balanced and reliable university rankings.

The QS World University Rankings 2026, released on 19 June by the British company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), evaluated 1,501 higher education institutions across 106 countries and territories. Among the 32 Brazilian universities featured, the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) maintains its position as one of the leading higher education institutions in Brazil and the world.

In the 2026 edition, UFSC is ranked in the 801-850 range globally. Nationally, it is recognized as the 8th best university in Brazil, reinforcing its academic excellence and its ongoing commitment to high-quality teaching, research, and internationalization.

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The QS World University Rankings: Latin America & The Caribbean 2025, released on Thursday, 3 October, ranked the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) as the 21st best universities in Latin America, and 18^th best in South America. UFSC is among the top 5% of all evaluated universities. Within Brazil, the institution ranked 8th overall and 4^th among federal universities. UFSC achieved a final score of 76.6 (on a scale from 1 to 100), a notable increase from the 68.7 score it received last year, when it was ranked 23rd in Latin America. This marks a significant improvement in the university’s performance.

The QS Rankings, produced annually by the British company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), evaluated 437 institutions across 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Leading the rankings this year is the Universidade de São Paulo (USP).

UFSC’s indicator scores in the QS World Rankings: Latin America and the Caribbean 2025.

Universities are evaluated based on eight indicators, each with weighted differently: academic reputation (30%); employer reputation (20%); faculty student ratio (10%); staff with PhD (10%); international research network (10%); citations per paper (10%); papers per faculty (5%) and web impact (5%). In this edition, UFSC excelled particularly in web impact (99.4), staff with PhD (99.1 score), and paper per faculty (98.5 score).

According to UFSC’s Director of International Relations, Dr. Fernanda Leal, the results reflect the university’s strong reputation, a criterion that accounts for 50% of the overall score. She notes that UFSC’s position also highlights its role as one of the leading research universities in Latin America. However, Dr. Leal emphasizes the limitations of relying on rankings for decision-making and formulating institutional internationalization policies, particularly due to their competitive nature and the lack of consideration for key factors that shape Brazilian public universities, such as outreach and community engagement.

Evolution of UFSC over the years in the ranking.

A fundamental aspect in evaluating universities’ performance, especially public ones, is their impact on society, says the Secretary for International Relations, Prof. Luiz Carlos Pinheiro Machado Filho. “This aspect has been addressed by university rankings, but still in an indirect way. The evaluations primarily reflect the academic work of universities, focusing on teaching, research and innovation. Faculty, staff and students engaged in academic work should therefore be congratulated, but those who work in the intermediary activities, which support these efforts, should also be recognized”, he states. The Secretary for International Relations aadded that the QS rakings assigned a 15% weight to the “global engagement” lens and that UFSC’s position in the ranking also reflects an internationalization effort by the entire academic community.

Regarding UFSC’s articles and external citations from 2018 and 2023, the primary focus was on research in the subjects of Life Sciences & Medicine.

Check out the complete ranking results on the QS website.