UIC Barcelona is considered the tenth best university under 50 years old out of a total of 33 institutions ranked nationally in the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings (THE). The University has featured for the first time in this prestigious international ranking and occupies position =193 out of 475 universities worldwide.

A total of 68 countries are represented in the 2021 list, with the United Kingdom being the most represented country with 37 universities, followed by India with 34 universities and Spain with 33 universities.

To analyse the level of excellence in higher education, the Young University Rankings are based on the same 13 performance indicators used in the THE World University Rankings, grouped into 5 pillars: teaching, research, citation, international outlook and industry income, adjusting the weightings to place less emphasis on academic reputation.