Universitat de Barcelona

Established in 1450, Universitat de Barcelona (UB) is the oldest public university in Catalonia and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is the principal centre of university research in Spain and a European benchmark for research activity, both in terms of the number of research programmes it conducts and the excellence these have achieved. UB publishes more research than any other Spanish institution with the exception of the Spanish National Research Council. Its library holds about two million volumes, making it the second-biggest university library in Spain. UB is widely considered to be the best university in Spain and one of the most prestigious universities outside the English-speaking world. It was ranked 1st in the European Union by uniRank and 55th in the world by the NTU Ranking.