The foundation Fundación CYD (Knowledge and Development, after its Spanish acronym) has recently published the statistical report ‘Las universidades españolas. Una perspectiva autonómica. 2020. Andalucía’ (‘Spanish universities. A regional perspective. 2020. Andalusia’, written in Spanish) in which it offers the main data of its annual report about the Spanish university system divided by regions. The report, which has been written using the data from the SIIU (Integrated System of University Information, after its Spanish acronym), places the Pablo de Olavide University as the only one among the public universities from Andalusia with an academic performance rate over 80% (81.9%) and the one with the lowest dropout rate of first year students (15.2%). The UPO also heads the percentage of traditional‑age graduates (below 25 years old for the undergraduate studies and below 30 for the master’s and doctorate degrees) with 84.6%, and it is the university with the highest percentage of full‑time students (84.4%). This data shows that the UPO heads the academic performance among the Andalusian public universities.

The report also describes in detail information about occupation, as well as enrolment and application preference. Thus, the Pablo de Olavide University has an occupation rate of 92.1%, just behind the University of Malaga and the University of Granada. Moreover, in the last five years, it is the university with the highest increase in first-choice applicant demand, with 10.2%, and in new enrolments by first-choice application with 8.5%.

With regard to graduates, the Andalusian university system is the second one with the highest percentage of graduate women. On this matter, the Pablo de Olavide University has the highest percentage of graduate women (63.8%, considering undergraduate studies, master’s and doctorate degrees) and it is the only one with a majority of women in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) with 54.3%. In addition, the UPO is the closest university to parity among its faculty, with 42.6% of women as part of the teaching and research staff.

Scientific production

In relation to research, according to the data of the SCImago group from the database Scopus, the UPO has the third highest number of publications produced by full time faculty, with a ratio of a 4.69, just behind the University of Granada and the University of Cordoba. Furthermore, it has the second highest percentage of publications in first quartile journals due to its impact (54.1%), it is in the fourth place regarding the percentage of publications with companies (1.88%), and, with 65.8%, it heads the publications produced in collaboration with institutions of the region.