Italy has 34 universities in the 2020 QS World University Rankings, five more than last year. Within Europe, that puts it ahead of France (with 31) and Spain (27), but well behind the UK (84) or Germany (47).

According to the ranking, which measures factors including the opinions of academics and employers, class sizes and the number of international students, the best Italian university is the Politecnico di Milano, which comes 149th out of around 1,000 institutions worldwide and top in Italy for the fifth year in a row.