Browse the full results of the Latin America University Rankings 2024

A Brazilian university has taken the top spot in the ����Vlog Latin America University Rankings for the first time in six years, ending Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’s five-year run at number one.

The University of São Paulo has moved from second to first in the region, and Brazil now takes seven out of the top 10 spots, including all of the top three.

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile is now at number four. The University of Chile remains at number nine, and Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey has dropped from fourth to joint seventh.

Overall, 32 of Brazil’s 69 ranked institutions have improved their position in the table. Part of the reason for Brazil’s success is changes to the rankings methodology, which now provides a more accurate picture of the quality of universities’ research.

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For the first time, the Latin America University Rankings includes three metrics to track the quality of research: research strength, which is based on the 75th percentile of field-weighted citation impact; research excellence, which measures the volume of research in the top 10 per cent of research worldwide; and research influence, which measures how influential (in terms of citations) the citing papers are. Previously, field-weighted citation impact was the only measure of research success.

Latin America University Rankings 2024: top 10

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Claudio Rama, academic director of the Universidad de la Empresa in Uruguay, said that Brazil has long been stronger in research than the rest of the region: “Public universities [in Brazil] are focused on research, unlike the rest of Latin America, which is focused on education.” The country has more funding for research and robust incentives and standards that encourage quality research, he added.

This year, 44 Brazilian institutions have improved their rank in the research quality pillar. The University of São Paulo now ranks first in the region for research quality, up from 38th last year. The University of Campinas is now third, up from 42nd, and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul is now sixth, up from 28th.

Simon Schwartzman, a Brazilian social scientist and author of A Space for Science: The Development of the Scientific Community in Brazil, said Brazil had a “federal system for graduate education and university research without parallel in Latin America”.

The state of São Paulo was especially strong for research, Professor Schwartzman said. The state provided “strong support to the three state universities and [a] well-endowed research agency, FAPESP, to support it. São Paulo is the richest region in the country, with a strong tradition of autonomy regarding the national government,” he said.

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However, “on the negative side, there is a tendency, in the federal system, to spread the resources thin…The consequence is that Brazilian science has a ‘long tail’ with a few universities and research departments – starting with the universities of São Paulo and Campinas – concentrating most of the scientific production.”

Edson Cocchieri Botelho, pro-rector of research at Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), a state university in São Paulo, agreed that the autonomy afforded to the state universities was key to their success, and put them in a “much more comfortable situation” than the federal universities that have more government oversight. “For sure, we should improve a lot of things, but I believe that the ideology of this model is very convenient for us,” he said.

Another factor in Brazil’s strengthening university system is the change in governmental support for academia since Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidency in October 2022. Many universities were left unable to pay for basic necessities as a result of budget cuts during Mr Bolsonaro’s term and university lecturers and professors had seen their pay frozen since 2016.

In the first year of his current term, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known as Lula – gave academics a 9 per cent wage increase and upped the funding for master’s and PhD scholarships.

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However, Professor Schwartzman said that while there was no longer the hostility to science and education that was present under the Bolsonaro government, challenges remain.

“The current government is much more favourable but along populist lines, distributing the resources thin and not having well-articulated research and innovation policies,” he said.

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rosa.ellis@timeshighereducation.com