Wednesday April 27th saw the release of the outcomes for the fourth edition of the University Impact Rankings, a classification drawn up by the international publication Times Higher Education (The) to highlight the contribution made by the world of universities and research to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, set out in the 2030 Agenda established by United Nations in 2015.

The Goals represent a call for concrete actions for change at global level, with a view to eradicating hunger and poverty, improving health and education, reducing inequalities, boosting economic growth, tackling climate change and its impacts, and above all promoting peaceful, responsible and inclusive societies.

Twenty Italian universities are included in the ranking, each assessed for the Goals it has signed up to. Insubria scores excellently for Quality education (Goals 4): it is 94th out of 1180 institutions, which means it is fifth in Italy and first in Lombardy. It is also at the top of the league table for Reduced inequalities (Goals 10), in the range 101-200 out of 796 universities. It is also above average in four objectives: Health (Goals 3), Gender equality (Goals 5), Economic growth (Goals 8) and Partnership for the goals (Goals 17).

"This is an excellent result for our university," commented Rector Angelo Tagliabue, "which will encourage us to improve even more on all the other goals. Insubria has taken up the challenge to change by investing in services and research, the real key to providing tools and answers to a constantly evolving society. Sustainability must be our main objective in all areas of life and research, and it is the university's job to help transfer these values to society".

The Quality Education indicator looks at universities' support for early years and lifelong learning, research into educational quality and inclusivity in general. Education research contributes 27%, the percentage of graduates who are able to teach 15.4%, resources and events that are made available to the general public 26.8% and the percentage of first generation students 30.8%.

First generation students are also an important part of the Reduced inequalities objective (15.5%) which, in addition to research (27%), considers the percentage of students and staff with disabilities (23%) and anti-discrimination policies (19%). In 2020 (XXIII AlmaLaurea Survey) 78.3% of three-year graduates and 52.7% of single-cycle master's graduates from Insubria came from families whose parents did not have a university degree.