Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona

1. Mission and goals

UPF is a young, public and modern university founded in 1990 and called to become one of the leading European universities.

Awarded with a CEI label (International Excellence Campus) by the Spanish Ministry of Education, UPF's indicators have made it a benchmark for the Spanish and European university systems. In recent years, the University has begun to figure prominently in some prestigious international rankings.

Global indicators:

International Excellence Campus (Spanish Ministry of Education, 2010)
Highest rate of performance in the Spanish system: 90% (2013-2014 academic year)
One of the twenty European universities with the most projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC, 2015)
First Spanish university in research productivity (Ranking 2012 in research production and productivity in the Spanish university public system (published in 2013)
High satisfaction rate (90%) and job placements (83%) among graduates (AQU Catalunya, 2014)

2. A specialized university

UPF structures its studies on three main fields of knowledge, closely interconnected and structured on three campuses:

Social sciences and humanities, Ciutadella campus
Health and life sciences, Mar campus
Communication and information technologies, Communication campus

Moreover, in order to promote research and transfer activities undertaken by university researchers and provide them with greater international visibility, the University is developing the UPF Research Park in the fields of social sciences, humanities, communication and information technologies. The UPF Research Park, which develops its activity at Ciutadella and Poblenou campuses, coordinates its activities in the fields of health and life sciences with the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, located on the Mar campus.

Facts & Figures (2014-2015 academic year):

Undergraduate students: 9,783 (UPF Group: 13,738)
Official Master's students: 959 (UPF Group: 2,643)
Doctoral students: 1,247
UPF Master's student: 1,813
Number of teaching and research staff: 594 FTE (Number of permanent professors: 339)
Number of administrative and service staff: 684
2015 Budget: 124 M€

3. The UPF model

UPF is committed to offering a high-quality teaching model and outstanding research with international projection, the three axis of the UPF model.

A high-quality teaching model close to the students

UPF's teaching model is based on comprehensive education and student-centred learning. Nowadays, the success of this model is proved by different indicators as, for example, the high demand of UPF studies, the rates of achievement among its students or the excellent rates of graduates employment and satisfaction.

Main indicators:

Admission

Two students apply for every UPF place available (2014-2015 academic year)
15% of new students finished high school with honours (2014-2015 academic year)

An Own Teaching Model

Highest rate of performance in the Spanish system: 90% (2013-2014 academic year)
1st Spanish university in productivity in the area of teaching (BBVA Foundation & Ivie, 2014)
MOOCs: partnership with Miríada X, FutureLearn

Results

Graduate employment rate: 83% (AQU Catalunya, 2014)
One out of four graduates found a job through the university (AQU Catalunya, 2014)
PhD employment rate: 96% (Analysis of the employment rate for UPF doctorates, 2012)
Satisfaction rate: 90% of UPF's graduates would choose the same university again (AQU Catalunya, 2014)

Outstanding research

These results are possible due to the high competitiveness of UPF lecturers and researchers. In that sense, the University model is primarily based on a policy of being an institution that is open to the world, incorporating prominent national and international researchers.

This commitment is reflected in excellent indicators in research, such as the volume of funds coming from the EU - 7th Framework Programme (FP7) or indicators of scientific production. Additionally, the strategy begins to result in the form of patents and spin-offs of international impact.

Main indicators:

Quality and International Impact

1st Spanish university in the impact of its scientific publications (Scimago, 2014)
1st Spanish university in percentage of papers produced in collaboration with foreign institutions (Scimago, 2014)
2nd Spanish university in percentage of articles published in the most influential scholarly journals of the world, those ranked in the first quartile (Q1) (Scimago, 2014)

Competitiveness

1st Spanish university in projects within the Spanish National R&D Plan (per 100 lecturers) (Granada & IUNE, 2012). According to IUNE: 13.9 projects for 100 lecturers.
1st Spanish university in projects within the EU Framework Programme (per 100 lecturers) (IUNE, 2012). According to IUNE: 7.46 projects for 100 lecturers.
1st Spanish university in Starting, Advanced & Consolidator Grants funded by the European Research Council (ERC, 2014). The UPF Group concentrates 16% of the whole grants awarded in Spain (accumulative data from 2007 to 2014).
2rd Spanish university in capacity to attract European funding in absolute terms (2007-2013) (CDTI Report, 2013)

Training Capacity

1st Spanish university in FPU scholarships (per 100 lecturers) (Granada & IUNE, 2012)
1st Spanish university in doctoral dissertations (per 100 professors) (Granada & IUNE, 2012)
64% of doctoral dissertations were written and defended in English (2013)
Eight out of nine PhD programmes have been awarded the Mention of Excellence by the Spanish ministry (2012)

Recruitment and Retention of Talent

38 ICREA, 28 ICREA Academia, 18 Marie Curie, 18 Juan de la Cierva, 14 Ramón y Cajal, 13 CIBER, 8 Beatriu de Pinós (2014)
46 ERC grants (UPF & UPF Group) (Starting, Advanced and Consolidator grants) (ERC, 2015). This represents 16% of the ERC grants obtained in Spain (accumulative data 2007-2014) with less than 1% of lecturers
International vocation

UPF international profile is the result of a strategy focused on establishing a policy of alliances with a network of preferred partners and the recruitment of lecturers with an international background. Besides, it also promotes international mobility (incoming and outgoing), includes the use of English in several courses and it is committed to consolidate a multilingual campus with three languages -Catalan, Spanish and English- used in all spheres of university life.

Main indicators:

Community
36% of official master's students and 52% of doctoral students are international (2014-2015 academic year)
30% of UPF graduates have studied abroad (2013-2014 academic year)
22% of UPF faculty is international (2014)
1st Spanish university in international outlook (THE, 2014)
1st Spanish university in the proportion of international faculty (QS, 2014)

Projects

Agreements with 27 of the Top 50 universities in the world (Times Higher Education ranking, 2013)
Summer School Programme with UCLA (from summer 2012)
Strategic alliances: A4U, Europaeum, YERUN and CASB (Ivy League)

4. International and national rankings

Main rankings:

Times Higher Education ranking (2015): 12th highest ranked university in the world among those under 50 years of age
Times Higher Education ranking (2014): 1st Spanish university (position 165 worldwide and 72 in Europe)
Multirank (2015): ranked 9th in Europe
Shanghai University ranking (2014): Among the 400 top universities in the world. By fields, it is the 1st Spanish university in Social Sciences
U-Ranquing (BBVA Foundation & Ivie, 2015): the most productive university in Spain
Ranking 2012 in research production and productivity in the Spanish public university system, published by researchers from the Granada University (2013): 1st Spanish university in scientific productivity since 2010
El Mundo ranking (2014): 8 of the 15 undergraduate courses evaluated are ranked among the Top 5
Scimago ranking (2014): 1st Spanish university in quality output (excellence rate). It is also the 1st Spanish university in normalized impact, the 1st in percentage of papers produced in collaboration with foreign institutions and the 2nd Spanish university in percentage of articles published in the most influential scholarly journals of the world, those ranked in the first quartile (Q1)