The Tecnológico de Monterrey has climbed seven spots in the International Research Network indicator of the QS World University Rankings: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026. In this regional university ranking, the institution remains among the top five overall and continues to hold the number one position in Mexico.
For the fifth consecutive year, Tec secured the fourth spot in the Latin American ranking and maintained its status as the second-best private higher education institution in the region. This year, Tec earned an overall score of 95.4 out of 100, based on eight evaluation indicators.
Javier Guzmán, Executive Vice President of Research at Tecnológico de Monterrey, emphasized the significance of the university’s performance in this latest rankings edition.
“The results in the 2026 edition of the QS World University Rankings: Latin America and The Caribbean reflect the strength of our commitment to educational excellence, rigorous research, and high-impact innovation aimed at transforming lives and communities.”
The British firm QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) publishes this annual ranking, which evaluates the best practices of universities across Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years. Institutions are assessed across four major areas: Research and Discovery, Employability and Outcomes, Learning Experience, and Global Engagement.
Tec Rises in International Research Collaboration
With a jump of seven positions in the International Research Network indicator, Tec de Monterrey now ranks ninth in this category, earning a score of 99.6 points. This metric assesses universities’ ability to establish and sustain scientific collaborations on a global scale.
The indicator focuses on international co-authorships involving at least three scientific publications over a five-year period. It evaluates factors such as geographic diversity—the number of different countries with which there is collaboration—the consistency of those partnerships over time, and the academic disciplines in which research is published. The data is sourced from the Scopus database.
It considers co-authorships across five dimensions: Engineering and Technology, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences and Management, Life Sciences and Medicine, and Arts and Humanities.
In addition to International Research Network, Tec also placed within the Top 10 in three other indicators. The highest-ranked of these is Employer Reputation, which held steady at fourth place across Latin America, with a perfect score of 100.
Also among Tec’s strongest areas are Citation per Paper, ranked ninth with a score of 99.8, and Academic Reputation, which remains in tenth place with a rating of 99.5 points.
Tec in the QS Latin America & The Caribbean University Rankings 2026
This ranking highlights the region’s top universities by evaluating factors such as research performance, teaching quality, and the academic prestige of faculty members.
In this year’s edition, Tec extended its streak to five consecutive years as the fourth-best university in the region. It also remains the second-highest-ranked private higher education institution across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Additionally, for the seventh year in a row, Tec holds the top spot in Mexico, leading a field of 67 universities evaluated this year—four more than in the previous edition.
Top 10 Universities in Latin America:
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
- Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
- Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil
- Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Universidad de Chile
- Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil
- Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
- Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina
Top 10 Universities in Mexico:
- Tecnológico de Monterrey
- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
- Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN)
- Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM)
- Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)
- Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG)
- Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México – IBERO
- Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP)
- Universidad Panamericana (UP)
- Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL)
QS LATAM Rankings Methodology
In the QS Latin America & The Caribbean University Rankings, universities are evaluated using indicators grouped into four main categories:
Research and Discovery
- Academic Reputation, accounting for 30% of the overall score
- Citation per Paper, 10%
- Papers per Faculty, 5%
Employability and Career Outcomes
- Employer Reputation, 20% of the total score
Learning Experience
- Faculty Student Ratio, 10%
- Staff with PhD, 10%
Global Engagement
- International Research Network, 10%
- Web Impact, 5%
Tec’s strongest-performing indicators in the rankings were Employer Reputation, where it ranked fourth in the region; International Research Network and Citation per Paper, both in ninth place in their respective categories; and Academic Reputation, ranked tenth.
These were followed by Web Impact, in 22nd place; Faculty Student Ratio, in 39th place; Staff with PhD, ranked 128th; and Papers per Faculty, in 157th place.
This year’s ranking includes 492 higher education institutions—55 more than in the previous edition—across 26 locations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Among them, 67 are from Mexico.
To be eligible for inclusion, universities must have published at least 50 academic papers indexed in the Scopus database between 2019 and 2023.
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