The foundation Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo (CYD, for its Spanish acronym) has published the report Las universidades españolas. Una perspectiva autonómica. 2018, which itemises the main figures from the Informe CYD 2017, considering not only the geography but also the universities.  Concerning rate of return, the UPO has the highest return rate among the Andalusian public universities, both in bachelor’s degrees (83%) and in official master’s degrees (95.7%). It is overtaken only in the first case by Loyola Andalucía, with an 83.7%. These figures place the UPO among the best Spanish universities about rate of return, tenth in degrees and ninth in postgraduate courses, since the national average is 80% and 89.7% respectively.

Dropout rates show the suitable academic performance of the UPO, which represents the lowest rate of Andalusian universities, not only in the first year of college (13.4%) but also in the overall rate (22.4%), while the national average among Spanish on-site universities is 27.5%. The UPO also yields the highest rate of suitability rate in the Andalusian region (which indicates the percentage of students who finish their studies in good time) about official master’s degree with an 84.5%. Concerning degrees, this figure is affected by the many double degrees that the UPO offers, as their importance and difficulty lead students to finish subsequently. The report shows that 38% of those who finish their degrees in the UPO continue their university education by starting a master’s degree. In this case, this University places third among Spanish universities.

With reference to investigation, the UPO yields an average of 4.26 publications taking its faculty into account (this ratio is overtaken by University of Córdoba and University of Granada), and it has the highest percentage of publications in journals belonging to the first quartile of its field considering the level of impact, with a 56.8%. Moreover, 45% of researchers studying in this University, whose doctoral thesis have passed, are of foreign origin.

The CYD was constituted in December 2002, whose main purpose is to analyse and promote the contribution of the Spanish universities to the economic and social development of this country, as well as to increase the bonds existing between universities and companies. The CYD is led and driven by Ana Botín, and many outstanding members of the academic and business world are associated to this foundation.  It publishes annually the so-called Informe CYD, which contains information about the contribution of the Spanish universities to the development.