The Universitat de València is listed in the same position in comparison with the previous year. However, it has improved its mark in every tested quality indicator. Only 10 out of 84 universities in Spain are listed in the ranking. Particularly, the Universitat de València has been listed in the national rank 8-10 alongside with the universities Politècnica de València and Santiago de Compostel·la. These three universities are classified in the world rank 401-500 in in alphabetical order.

The other 7 Spanish universities included in the list are Complutense de Madrid, Pompeu Fabra, Granada, Autònoma de Barcelona, Autónoma de Madrid and País Vasco. Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Cambridge hold the leading positions in the ranking.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is the most prestigious international ranking. One Spanish university has dropped form ARWU2018, proving that it is very difficult to prevail in such as selective ranking.

The ranking uses several indicators focused on the researching capacity of the institutions in order to assess the centres of higher education. Therefore, having Nobel Prize or Fields Medal awarded professors or students, researching personnel highly quoted in 21 thematic categories, articles published in the magazines Nature or Science, articles registered in the Social Science Citation Index or the Science Citation Index-Expanded of the previous year, as well as the academic performance per capita (as a result of the five previous values divided by the number of full-time academic personnel) are taken into account.