The University of Barcelona has jumped eight places in the Leiden Ranking 2017 for Social Sciences and Humanities, from 161st to 153rd position worldwide. The university is the leading institution in Spain in this field since 2016, when it overtook the Autonomous University of Barcelona as the top institution in Spain. The University of Barcelona has maintained the upward trend since 2014, improving its position by 123 places worldwide. Havard (USA), Oxford (UK) and Toronto (Canada) lead the Social Sciences and Humanities ranking in 2017. In Europe, Barcelona holds the 50th position, after having jumped one place in the last year.

When taking into account all the science fields, the University of Barcelona is among the top 150 universities worldwide (132nd position) and leading university in Spain. In Europe, it holds the 36th position in a list led by the University of Oxford. The other top universities of this international ranking in Spain are the Autonomous University of Barcelona (176th), the Complutense University of Madrid (179th), University of Granada (234th) and the University of Valencia (249th).

The Leiden Ranking 2017 offers key insights into the scientific performance and collaboration of over 900 major universities worldwide, according to a set of bibliometric indicators in indexed publications in Thomson Reuters Web of Science during 2012-2015. The Leiden Ranking does not rely on subjective data obtained from reputational surveys or on data provided by universities themselves, unlike other university rankings.