The Polytechnic of Turin has achieved a great result in the new QS World University Rankings, which has been released today in London by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The position of the University in the world ranking remains steady: in fact, it ranks 307th, while Italy ranks 7th. Since 2012, the Polytechnic has been gaining almost 100 positions and it ranks now in the inner circle (about 1% of the total) of the universities in the world that are at the top of the ranking, which analyses more than 26,000 universities in the world.

This is another very important result, after the excellent results obtained in the ranking regarding the subjects of each department, released last March by QS, where the Polytechnic ranks 52nd in the world for Engineering, and is one of the top 50 universities in the world for Architecture and Civil and Structural Engineering.

The areas in which the Polytechnic has improved its performances in this new ranking are the overall reputation in the academic field and at work. These are two yardsticks in which the University obtains evaluations that are a great deal higher than the average ones, for example as regards the impact of research on the scientific community, where the ranking evaluates the relation between the number of citations and the number of professors.

In Italy, the Polytechnic ranks third three times: in the reputation at work and in the relation between the number of citations and the number of professors that we have just mentioned, and also in the number of foreign students.

However, there are some critical factors that have penalized the Polytechnic in the overall ranking: the high number of students for each professor and the low number of foreign professors. The University is trying to improve its performances as regards these two “problems”, thanks to a huge investment in human resources that will allow to ensure a more high quality education.

Marco Gilli, the Dean of the Polytechnic, says that: “We are satisfied with these results, that show how the reputation of our University is increasing both in the academic field and in international companies, which brings clear advantages to our graduated students for the access to the world of work”. He also adds that: ”The courageous policies that we have implemented in terms of human resources will allow us to considerably increase the number of professors that, together with the number of fixed-term researchers, will reach the number 1000 by 2018. in addition, the call for external professors, that has just ended, will allow us to employ a significant number of professors coming from foreign universities, and in this way we will have the opportunity to improve in the fields where we are weaker from the structural point of view. In a more and more competitive world, our improvement in the ranking is a positive signal, but we are aware of the fact that some structural difficulties of the Italian university system, such as the high number of students for each professor and the low number of graduated students, will only be overcome with a significant increase in investments in research and higher education”.