Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) was established by an Act of the Spanish Parliament on 5 May 1989, within the framework of the University Reform Act of 1983. From the outset it was intended to be a relatively small, innovative, public university, providing teaching of the highest quality and focused primarily on research.

Students

The UC3M has 18,843 students, being similar in size to some of the major European universities, such as Paris II, Uppsala, Maastricht, Tilburg, Cambridge and Oxford.

The average grade achieved by students admitted to all degree courses at UC3M is the highest for all the Madrid-based universities and currently stands at 10.074 out of a maximum of 14 points.

The UC3M is the 1st university in Spain and 3rd in Europe in terms of undergraduate students (including degree and engineering courses under the former system) taking part in the Erasmus student exchange programme.

Research

The UC3M is organized into 26 departments and 23 University Research Institutes. In addition, since 2005 it has an Official Catalogue of research groups consisting of 127 recognized groups, of which 57 are from the Escuela Politécnica, 53 from Social and Legal Sciences and 17 from Humanities, Communication and Documentation.

The UC3M holds second place in participation in the European Union Framework Program (standardized data by number of permanent researchers), second in average number of publications per professor and fifth in theses directed per professor.