Once again, the excellence of São Paulo's universities is recognized by the Times Higher Education (THE) international ranking. The State University of Campinas (Unicamp), in the 2021 edition, released this Tuesday (2), remains positioned in second place among Brazilian and Latin American universities. The first place in the region is from the University of São Paulo (USP). The world leadership is from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
“The three universities in the state of São Paulo are very well placed in the ranking. In particular, USP and Unicamp are the first in all of Latin America, which demonstrates the excellence achieved with university autonomy. It is truly impressive to see how a university like Unicamp has achieved so many advances in just a few years”, says the dean of Unicamp, Marcelo Knobel.
Among the first ten Brazilian universities on the list, nine are public universities. In relation to the 2020 edition of THE's international ranking, both USP and Unicamp maintained their leadership in the country and improved their position in the global context. The dean considers that the results reflect scenarios from a few years ago. Thus, he indicates that the most important thing is that universities maintain their good position year after year. “The rankings do not reflect immediate situations, they reflect situations from three, four years ago and we continue to maintain a good position, among the best universities in Latin America”, he explains.
In the global panorama, in which more than 1.500 universities were evaluated, the first place goes to the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, followed by Stanford University and Harvard University, both in the United States.
Rating criteria
The ranking evaluates universities on five criteria: teaching; search; quotes; international presence among students, researchers and teachers; and revenues from industry through knowledge transfer. Unicamp, among the parameters, obtained the best score in the last item.
PL 529: threat to universities in São Paulo
Currently being processed in the Legislative Assembly of the state of São Paulo, Bill (PL) 529/2020, from the state government, proposes a series of measures that, if approved, will affect the functioning of universities. “In this context, PL 529 could affect the university’s activities now and, naturally, the ranking position in the future. The University is a true asset for the state of São Paulo, built with a lot of investment, and which cannot be wasted”, says Knobel.
PL 529/2020 violates, especially in article 14, the financial and management autonomy of USP, Unicamp and Unesp, in addition to the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), institutions that are responsible for a large part of the scientific, cultural and innovation production in the state. By impacting the withdrawal of surplus from universities and Fapesp, it would drastically affect all teaching, research and extension activities of these institutions.
