THIS year's global university rankings includes 12 Spanish colleges in the top 50, a major improvement on the 2017 edition.
The QS Subject Rankings list considers universities by subject, and the dozen in Spain which feature are highlighted for 22 different faculties.
Ranking is decided through factors such as results of major surveys by employers and academics, and data relating to research carried out in the universities.
This year's list by the company QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) has analysed 46 specialist subjects within six main areas: arts and humanities; engineering and technology; health and medical sciences; natural sciences; social sciences, and business administration.
Other than the University of Navarra, based in the regional capital of Pamplona, all the other universities in Spain in the top 50 are in Madrid and Barcelona.
Madrid's Complutense University comes out on top, followed by Madrid Autonomous University, Madrid Polytechnic, Madrid's Carlos III University, Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona University, and Barcelona Autonomous University, then Navarra.
After Navarra comes Catalunya Polytechnic, the University College of Hotel, Catering and Tourism in Sant Pol de Mar in Catalunya, the IESE Business School and the ESADE Business School.
The Complutense is highlighted at number 30 for its faculty of odontology – students of which are pictured above, in their classroom – number 33 for veterinary medicine and number 46 for classical languages.
Madrid Autonomous Univerity comes 49th for sports and exercise science, whilst the Carlos III comes 22nd in librarian and archiving studies and 50th in economics.
The city's Polytechnic is 31st for architecture and town planning and 46th for engineering, whilst in Catalunya, the Pompeu Fabra is 38th in the world for economics, Barcelona University is 21st for anatomy and physiology, 33rd for archaeology, 46th for philosophy and 49th for education studies.
Barcelona Autonomous University comes 31st for veterinary medicine and Catalunya Polytechnic is 22nd in architecture and town planning and 34th in engineering.
Navarra University is 49th in media and public relations and 50th in philosophy, whilst the Sant Pol de Mar University College of Hotel, Catering and Tourism is 48th in the world for its catering management degrees.
The ESADE Business School, part of Ramón Llull University, is 27th in business studies and the IESE Business School is 31st in business studies.
Quacquarelli Symonds' report shows that Spanish colleges have made significant improvements in comparison with their European counterparts, especially in science, technology, engineering and maths, and in the 48 tables included in the paper, Spanish universities appear 313 times.
Only in 30 of these have subject areas in Spanish universities dropped down the list, or 9.6% of the total for the country, and the nation's higher education centres have broken the national record with 91 ranking improvements, or 29.1% of the total.
Only Switzerland and Portugal have shown greater improvements than Spain out of all the countries studied.
Spain's betterment has beaten those seen in the UK, The Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Ireland, whilst higher education systems in France and Germany have actually worsened this year.
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