The Lens
QS World University Rankings:
Latin America and the Caribbean 2024
In this edition, QS Senior Research Manager Drew MacFarlane & QS Strategic Rankings Consultant Dr Ludovic Highman dive into the QS Latin America & Caribbean Region Rankings, providing some insights to this year's results.
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s genre-defining Cien años de soledad (One hundred years of solitude), one of the abiding themes is the inescapable repetition of history tinged with the unavoidable repetition of the future. Births, deaths, marriages, triumph and tragedy - played out as it ever was. Rankings, in many ways, display a similarly disorienting manner and this is perhaps more true of our QS Latin America Region ranking than it is of others. It has become a byword for stability, and while this is laudable in terms of the consistent picture it presents to students, it might make us question whether there is sufficient innovation, investment and impact being made by the academic sectors in the region. The history of this ranking may seem repetitive, but the future of it needn’t.
The Top 10 institutions in the 2024 edition of the QS Latin America & Carribean Region ranking features 9 of the same names as the 2020 edition. Some have moved up or down a place, and one institution dropped out of the Top 10 to allow another to enter – but at the business end of the ranking, it’s the same photograph from a different angle. A counterpoint to this can be seen in our Asia Region ranking, where in the 2020 edition the top three spots had no Chinese institutions. By our 2023 Asia Ranking, two of the top three were from China, weakening Singapore’s historic grip. It is always a challenge, in a ranking's context, to infer if this means those at the top are continuing to demonstrate such excellence that they maintain their podiums, or if those lower in the rankings are not putting in the training hours to catch up in the race. In truth, it’s probably a mixture of both.
Ranking expansion
The methodology for our Latin America & Caribbean Region ranking has remained the same for several years now. This year, however, we relaxed our eligibility criteria to welcome more friends from the Caribbean into the ranking. In the Caribbean region, the University of the West Indies is one of only two regional universities in the world and is an illustration of the strength that can be achieved through the pooled resources of 18 English-speaking countries and territories of the Caribbean. This sort of regional cooperation is to be nurtured and emulated, under a variety of different formats.
The work of Jane Knight (2012) provides the terms of a conceptual mapping of higher education regionalisation on a continuum of intensity, whether under the form of cooperation, coordination, convergence or integration of the likes in place within the European Higher Education Area. The “continuum” (Knight, 2012, p.26) is by no means linear, and different regions, networks and alliances may have different end goals, so it is important to highlight all different kinds of regional activities when it comes to cross-border higher education. This is particularly important for Latin America, which suffers from a lack of regionally funded frameworks to encourage teaching and research collaboration.
In real terms, Jamaica sees the University of Technology join at 401+. Grenada’s new entrant, St. Georges University, joins at 201-250, while Trinidad and Tobago see the University of Trinidad and Tobago join at 351-400. In South America, two new countries are represented this year, Guyana and Suriname. The University of Guyana’s mission “is to discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard for the service of the community, the nation, and of all mankind within an atmosphere of academic freedom that allows for free and critical inquiry” once again highlighting the key role universities are expected to play for the economic and societal wellbeing of a country. The Anton de Kom Unviersiteit Van Suriname is the only university in Suriname and is ranked in the 301-350 bracket. It is also the only ranked Dutch-speaking university in South America.
Other already previously ranked academic powerhouses in the Caribbean include three Cuban institutions, namely the Universidad de La Habana (=33rd), the Universidad de Oriente Santiago de Cuba (116th) and the Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas (133rd) who are among the top five universities in the Caribbean islands and in the top 150 of this ranking. The Universidad de Puerto Rico (46th) and the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) complete the picture (141st). Universities in Cuba and the Dominican Republic dominate the top 10 in the Caribbean region, with five and three universities respectively in the top 10.
Methodology
Like all of our regional rankings, the methodology takes its inspiration from the QS World University Ranking, but with additional metrics and a rebalancing of weights to reflect some of the priorities, and challenges, of the region. Metrics not found in our World University Ranking include Staff with PhD, Web Impact, Citations per Paper and Papers per Faculty.
We look at PhD rates among faculty staff (10 percent) to highlight that academic quality still continues to be a challenge in the region. Obtaining a PhD, while not a panacea for solving poor educational quality, does at least infer subject expertise as well as having that expertise recognised by peers.
We look at an institution’s web impact in the recognition that a university that deserves a place in a global ranking, should, at a minimum, have a strong web presence. This will also typically have content in English, which is vital for students operating across borders and languages, rather than just focusing on the domestic student market. And the final metrics not found in our World University Ranking is Papers per Faculty and Citations per Paper. These metrics recognise that at a regional level, research productivity is an important aspect of an institution’s growth, and that global citations do tend to favour those that publish in English. Keen followers of QS will know that we have introduced a Sustainability metric to our World Ranking. This has not been integrated into the coming edition of the Latin America and Caribbean Ranking, but do keep a lookout for announcements on whether this will be adopted in our regional rankings in future.
Cases of excellence
Having spoken briefly about some of the methodological components of this ranking, we move swiftly on to looking at why it is important not to focus just on the methodology. During a recent webinar for our QS World University Rankings, I made the point that if an Olympic runner wants to understand how they can move from 3rd to 1st place, they should not focus on the type of stopwatch being used by the judges, or the material of the track or the weather conditions and so forth. They should focus on themselves. An institution must understand and strategically work towards what it believes are its distinctive missions and roles for its local, regional and global communities. Then, it can work on how best it can serve those needs while disseminating scholarship and teaching of the highest calibre. The essence of achievement lies not in dissecting the intricacies of a stopwatch's construction, but in outrunning it. So now, let’s turn to look at examples of best practice in the region so that others may take some inspiration.
Reputation
Universidade de Sao Paolo takes the #1 spot in this ranking. Their reputation scores among academics and employers are 100 and 98.8 respectively. But how do you build such a reputation?
Well, to begin with, they are recognised not only highly, but widely. As with almost all other institutions, they are recognised most strongly from academics inside the country. However, they also attract significant reputation recognition from elsewhere – nearly 25 percent from the next highest nominating countries, and then between 14 and 20 percent for the next two after that. Compare this with an institution towards the middle end of the ranking, where they receive 13 percent from the highest nominating international destination, and then a big drop to just five percent for the next four. A similar pattern holds for their recognition among employers.
For starters, they have more than twice as many publications and citations in Brazil as their nearest peer. This means that more academics are reading and citing their research, or collaborating with them, or meeting them on the conference circuit and so forth. This is a case of research feeding reputation, feeding research, where, by building a good reputation, other researchers come and work with them and in turn build that reputation even more.
Another clue might lie with their recent curriculum strategy reported by their domestic media. They have unveiled an ambitious plan to overhaul their curriculum to ensure their graduates leave more employability-ready. They have understood that Employer Reputation is not just a ‘stopwatch’ that QS uses to measure performance, but a real and tangible factor that, through strategic change and hard work, they can meaningfully influence.
Global Engagement
A short flight north to Mexico, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) comes in at #7 in this ranking. UNAM also possess excellent academic and employer reputations, but they also score 100 in our International Research Network metric. This metric looks at the number of research partners an institution has, and the variety of locations represented by those partners. As the number increases, we hope to see the diversity increase too. The world’s challenges – social, technological and political – are solved in collaboration and by the lowering of borders. UNAM partner with universities in more than 90 countries, particularly in the sciences. We also see this global engagement in their web impact score (100), again, showing that while metrics are analysed independently, they are often more connected than we might think.
An institution must understand and strategically work towards what it believes are its distinctive missions and roles for its local, regional and global communities.
Research Impact
Further south, and coming out of the Rankings Top 10, Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), in Santiago Chile, ranks 33 overall, but scores 100 for citations per paper. This means that, on average, each of their published papers is receiving the highest number of citations. So, what can we learn from UDP? For one, they have identified a clear research strategy and that is to focus on research that has real and tangible benefits. To quote their official strategy, they write “Research at Diego Portales University focuses on a dual strategy. This strategy implies that our scholars strive to contribute to their field of study and, at the same time, have a real impact on public matters at the local, national and international levels.”
Is this strategy instantiated? The top two most cited papers are in Astrophysics, which is not atypical for high citations – but the third is a paper on nationalism in politics, and the fifth is a paper on the effects of COVID-19 on urban mobility. Current, important and grounded in real concerns. What other institutions may learn here is that while it’s completely valid to focus on tried and tested research themes, a strategic focus on research that matters must not be neglected.
Improvements
Having looked at examples of institutions that have exceedingly high scores, it is also instructive to look at those who have shown marked improvement over the years, as this is presumably a trajectory that many other institutions in the region hope to take. Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), in Ecuador, is one such institution. In our 2013 edition of the ranking, they ranked at 151-161, had moved to 116 by 2016, and in this year’s edition, are ranked at 60. An increase of 100 places over the past decade. Their best performing metrics are in Academic Reputation and International Research Network, again signalling how important it is to partner globally if you want to be recognised globally.
We spoke to their rector, Cecilia Paredes Verduga, who commented on the importance of globalisation, not only to education, but more widely. She states, “The first challenge is to be significant in solving the pressing problems of society, and a good way is to act around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal.” She adds that institutions must “carry out research that is applicable in society and that allows us to face challenges that need quick action, as happened in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
We can see the evidence of this conviction – some of the most highly cited papers from ESPOL over the past few years have been around renewable energy, sustainable development and COVID-19 health outcomes, again showing that in addition to the ‘classic’ themes of academia, institutions must not lose sight of what is consequential to society now. ESPOL’s overall research has also grown exponentially, with almost 30 times more papers indexed now than a decade ago, as well as a growing staff and student body.
The universities of the world must be promoters of new knowledge to address national and planetary challenges, challenges that require comprehensive training efforts in favour of a global citizenship that provides solutions to the problems of democracy, climate change and inequality, among others.
Pushing for regional frameworks
The Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees in Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Buenos Aires Convention, adopted in 2019 by 23 countries, has sought to provide impetus to regional academic mobility. However, it only entered into force at the end of 2022 and has only been ratified by a handful of countries and governments so far, such as, Cuba, Grenada, Peru, Uruguay and the Holy See.
The region has suffered from the lack of economic incentives and existing regional programmes to promote cooperation in higher education, particularly in research and training. It has limited the capacity of university networks to contribute to generating and disseminating shared knowledge. This was emphasised by Professor Gil de Zúñiga who argued that:
“A relevant issue relates to the scarcity of primary sources of funding. Most of the available funds are promoted at the State level, and these grants are highly competitive. In other words, there are very few grants offered which leads to a lack of diversity in funding sources. As opposed to other countries, in Latin America there is a weak culture for civil society Foundations, Institutes, NGOs, and other organisations to provide research funding to academics. These types of opportunities are clearly more developed in other parts of the world.” (Gil de Zúñiga, Distinguished Research Professor Universidad de Salamanca, Distinguished Professor of Media Effects and AI at Penn State University, and Senior Research Fellow, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile).
Mobility within the region is also hampered by the lack of intraregional mobility infrastructure or publicly funded schemes. Currently, only 0.8 percent of higher education students in Latin America benefit from some form of mobility, with the majority opting for destinations in Europe or North America. Intraregional mobility has recently received the necessary political momentum it deserved. On 30th May 2023, leaders of all South Americans nations met on the invitation of Brazilian President Lula, who proposed 10 topics for discussion of key importance to further cooperation and integration within the region, known as the Brasilia Consensus. One of these focused on boosting intraregional mobility of students and researchers.
Research collaboration is important for metrics such as IRN, but also to increase the impact of research, as measured through Citations per Paper. It is generally understood that internationally co-authored publications are more highly cited than domestic ones, although of course publishing in English can sometimes be challenging, and leading scholars in the field working within the region have observed that:
“One of the challenges that I have observed over the years relates to the English language as an international research language. Similarly to some European countries (i.e., Spain, Italy, France, etc.), Latin American countries are lagging in developing solid infrastructures in their education system so individuals can read and write in English. This is not to undermine the research and publications performed in their own languages, but rather highlight that most of the high impact international journals will publish research in English. It is by far the most commonly used international language for research and its dissemination, and this can be a problem for Latin American researchers.” (Gil de Zúñiga, Distinguished Research Professor Universidad de Salamanca, Distinguished Professor of Media Effects and AI at Penn State University, and Senior Research Fellow, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile).
Latin American institutions have suffered from the lack of a regional mechanism or framework to support intraregional research collaboration. Regional equivalents like Horizon Europe (and its EUR 95.5 billion for the period from 2021-2027) do not exist in Latin America. Unfortunately, Latin America is the only world region QS ranks where there has been a decrease in papers per faculty from 2013-2023 (see QS 20th anniversary report, 2023) and regional frameworks nurturing and incentivising collaboration could help spur further co-authored outputs between researchers in the region.
Encouraging research also necessitates a domestic or ‘bottom up’ approach of nurturing home talent, through homegrown doctoral initiatives. Latin American countries can gain from increasing the numbers of doctoral programmes, in particular in subject areas like the Social Sciences, as there is a perceived lack of publicly funded PhD opportunities, according to Professor Gil de Zúñiga:
“I would like to mention that the doctoral programmes offered in Latin America for Social Sciences (i.e., Communications, Political Science, etc.) are somewhat limited. In the end, only a handful of publicly funded programmes are available, and students may seek more opportunities abroad, in Europe or North America. This leads to the region being an exporter of talent, and to ‘brain drain’. It is also true that this trend has changed in the past 10 or 15 years, but more needs to be done to completely reverse it. While the academic quality of PhD programmes is increasing, more talented trained faculty should be hired at competitive salaries and directly associated with PhD programmes in Latin America, which will only strengthen these programmes."
In order to prevent further ‘brain drain’ from the region and to retain some of its most promising researchers, while attracting others who may have already left, some institutions are leading the way through various incentives according to Professor Gil de Zúñiga, who is affiliated to the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile, the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain and Penn State University in the USA: “The way UDP tried to alleviate this issue is by increasingly offering better salaries in past years, and also generating some robust synergies with international scholars. This way there might be some incentives beyond the financial ones, for Latin American citizens to return to where they grew up, without scarifying a leading researching career in another region."
Doctorates are fundamental to a university’s success as a research-intensive university - they enable key research groups to build capacity, expand their international networks and secure competitive funding. And doctorates are fundamental to a nation’s knowledge economy - by providing the talent to meet future skills requirements, doctorates drive a country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. By providing more doctoral opportunities for their own citizens, Latin American nations can build an indigenous knowledge base for a sustainable future.
A final quote
In preparation for this piece, we spoke to rectors on the challenges of collectively responding to local, national and global issues, as well as ensuring universities are training their students not just for academic success but also for the benefit of society at large. This quote from Dolly Montoya Castaño, Rector de Universidad Nacional de Colombia, is illustrative of much of the sentiment we heard:
“The Colombian university, and especially the public university, has the challenge of building a nation, promoting peace and territorial development with equity. To comply with this mission, universities must comprehensively train their students with civic attitudes and cognitive skills that allow them to positively impact their communities, thus leading great social transformations. This enormous task is not exclusive to the Colombian context. The universities of the world must be promoters of new knowledge to address national and planetary challenges, challenges that require comprehensive training efforts in favour of a global citizenship that provides solutions to the problems of democracy, climate change and inequality, among others. For the future, our national, regional and global universities must try to build bridges of academic cooperation between them, which encourage collective leadership and collaborative work in the search for well-being and comprehensive development of communities and their territories” (UNAL - Colombia).