Launched in 2003, ARWU ranks the world’s top 1800 universities – out of a global total of 17,000 – publishing the top 1000.
The ranking is based on criteria including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of highly-cited researchers and per capita academic performance.
La Sapienza holds the 153rd position, in the 151-200 range, which also includes Italy’s University of Pisa and the Statale di Milano, in second and third place respectively.
A total of 46 Italian universities are included in the 2019 ARWU ranking.
The top 30 places in the international table were dominated by US and UK universities, with the top three places once again taken by Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge.
The highest ranking universities in Europe included ETH Zurich (in 19th place) and the University of Copenhagen (26th).
The 2019 ranking was described by La Sapienza president, Eugenio Gaudio, as a “remarkable leap forward”.
