Universidad de Santiago shows new progress at prestigious international ranking

  • Our University has reached its best historical position, moving up to the 451-460 rank and being again at the third place nationwide.
  • According to the ranking, the most outstanding results are in the academic reputation and the employer reputation categories, in which Universidad the Santiago reached the 195th and 244th place worldwide, respectively.
  • The University President, Juan Manuel Zolezzi, stressed that this steady progress is the result of “the joint work that all the community has done” at posing the challenge of growing everyday. “This recognizes something that we have been saying for a long time: we are in conditions to compete for the first places among Chilean universities,” he said.


 

Universidad de Santiago de Chile again gave a qualitative and quantitative leap at the renowned international QS WorldUniversity Rankings 2014-15, where it has reached its best historical result in the 10 years of this survey, positioning itself in the 451-460 rank. In this way, the University keeps its third place nationwide, showing a steady progress since 2009, when it was in the 551-600 rank.

 
According to the University President, Dr. Juan Manuel Zolezzi, what fills him with satisfaction is the fact that this progress does not reflect something specific but “a sustained progress over time; therefore, in the following  years, we could position ourselves in a new rank.”

 
He stressed that getting the third place nationwide “is a very important recognition for our University,” adding that the distance in the QS Ranking between Universidad de Santiago, and Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile, both of which ranked higher than our University, should be considered as a big  institutional challenge. “We are expectant, although we are still far from the other two universities. But we all know that there are many reasons to explain this situation, like the limited resources that this University and state universities, in general, have,” he said.

 
Key indicators

 
According to the report delivered by QS, located in the United Kingdom, two key factors contributed to the progress shown by our University in the last survey, which are related to the “academic reputation” and the “employer reputation” categories.

 
The academic reputation had been showing positive levels since 2011 and ranked Universidad de Santiago at the 244th place worldwide today, while the employer reputation ranked it at the 195th place worldwide out of 800 institutions included in the survey.

 
When highlighting the good results, President Zolezzi put a strong emphasis on the indicator related to employers, specifying that “this particularly makes me happy, because it is something that we do not manage directly: it is the opinion that employers have about our work as a state and public university. All in all, is the way they see us, they way they perceive us.”

 
According to Dr. Zolezzi, the results of the QS University Rankings 2014-2015 are “the accurate reflection of what we have been saying for a long time: we are in conditions to compete for the first places among Chilean universities.”

 
He also stressed that this steady progress over the years is the result of the work of all the University community, “of those who want to work for the sake of our University and of those who are working in the same line, driving this institution, always looking forward and up.”

 
For all the above, President Zolezzi invited the community to follow that way. “Progressing quickly in these topics is possible. We should be better evaluated in some aspects, like citations and academic references- in which we have shown great progress- and internationalization, among others; but we are moving forward and I feel hopeful that this will continue getting better,” he finally said to the national press that has shown interest  in these good results.

 
Translated by Marcela Contreras