The University of Coimbra was founded in 1290, when Portugal itself was less than 150 years old.
More than seven centuries later, one of Europe’s oldest universities has returned to the top 500 of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, commonly known as the Shanghai Ranking.
Coimbra moved up 45 places in the 2026 assessment and is now the third-highest Portuguese university in the ranking.
Shanghai does not publish exact positions below the top 100, placing universities into groups instead, so Coimbra officially sits in the 401–500 band.
Coimbra improved its performance for highly cited researchers, one of the measures used to assess the international influence of scientific work. Its strongest result came from research articles indexed in major international scientific databases.
The university is closely associated with the Joanina Library, academic traditions, and the historic buildings that have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013.
Behind them is a large research institution spanning medicine, science, engineering, law and other fields, with research centres working across the university.
The Shanghai result is also not an isolated one. Coimbra is in the 401–500 group of the 2026 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and reached 342nd place in the QS World University Rankings 2027, its best QS position in recent years.
For a university whose international image is still inseparable from buildings and traditions accumulated over centuries, some of its strongest signals in 2026 are coming from the work being produced now.
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