Brazil has 14 of the 20 best universities in Latin America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil has 72 of the 197 best higher education institutions in Latin America in 2022, according to a survey published Thursday (14) by the British magazine Times Higher Education. Of these, 28 are among the 50 with the best regional rating, says the Times Higher Education survey 2021.

USP (University of São Paulo) is the best-ranked Brazilian university in the ranking, coming in 2nd for the 6th consecutive year. It is second only to Chile’s PUC (Pontificia Universidad Católica), which has been at the top since 2018.

The state of São Paulo is home to Latin America’s most important higher education institutions. In addition to USP, Unicamp (University of Campinas) and Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) complete the Times Higher Education Top 5.

Among the top 20 universities in the region, 14 are in Brazil, including four in São Paulo.

The country outperformed the Latin American average on most assessments, except for citation rate and international metrics such as foreign students and collaboration with other universities around the world.

The increase is due to an improvement in the quality and quantity of research, especially at Unifesp and Santa Catarina State, which each moved up 5 places from the last survey.

Although there is one less university in the top 50 (there were 29 in 2021), institutions such as UFPB (Federal University of Paraíba) reappear in the top 100 list after a hiatus last year.

Another 11 countries make the list, with Chile (30), Colombia (29), Mexico (26), and Ecuador (13) standing out. Argentina has 7 institutions in the ranking – University Austral, the best ranked, is 44th. Compared to the 2021 ranking, there were 25 additions, 9 of which were Brazilian.