The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is ranked No. 54 on a recent list published by Times Higher Education, of the world’s best universities for interdisciplinary science research — making UNAM the No. 1 university in Latin America for that category.
Times Higher Education — formerly a supplement of The Times of London before becoming an independent entity in 2008 — is a prominent British publication and data provider best known for its annual world university rankings.
UNAM’s lofty position among the 749 universities on the list — representing 92 countries and territories — on THE’s inaugural list for interdisciplinary science research puts it ahead of every other university in Latin America.
Interdisciplinary science refers research that integrates concepts, methods and perspectives from multiple scientific fields in order to address complex questions or problems that can’t effectively be studied within a single field. An example would be biophysics, which combines principles of biology and physics to study the mechanics of biological systems
Among Latin American universities, No. 54 UNAM was followed by Brazil’s the University of Sao Paulo (No. 57), Pontifical Catholic University (No. 63) in Chile and Brazil’s Paulista State University (No. 84) in the top 100.
Mexico’s prestigious Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Monterrey Tech) appeared on the list at No. 139.
14 other Mexican universities received rankings, but none better than No. 250.
UNAM — which former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador once chastised for becoming “individualistic” during the nation’s neoliberal period from 1982 to 2018 — is the largest educational institution in Mexico and one of the largest and most prestigious in Latin America.
Its main campus in Mexico City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it also has satellite campuses and research centers across Mexico and abroad. THE lists UNAM’s overall enrollment at 175,968 students.
The interdisciplinary sciences list was arrived at by using 11 indicators to evaluate the three main stages of research: funding, administrative support, and “output,” such as published studies, research quality and reputation.
The top five schools on the list are MIT, Stanford University, the National University of Singapore, Cal Tech and Duke University.
UNAM indicated in a bulletin that its inclusion on the list is thanks to its commitment to finding solutions to global challenges. According to the UNAM Statistical Agenda 2024, the university carried out 6,383 research projects in 2023 alone.
THE also published an overall ranked list, the World University Rankings 2025, which was led by the United States with seven universities in the top 10.
The top five on that list are the University of Oxford (for the ninth year in a row), MIT, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Cambridge. Stanford dropped from second to sixth from last year.
UNAM achieved a nonspecific ranking on this list that falls between No. 801 and No. 1,000. Monterrey Tech ranked higher, appearing in the No. 601– No. 800 group.
Autonomous University of Sinaloa appeared in the No. 1,201–No. 1,500 group, while 19 Mexican universities were included in the No. 1,500+ group.
With reports from El País and Times Higher Education
