Which are the best public Higher Education Institutions in Spain and Latin America?

Quality at the level of Higher Education today is no longer a fad but an obligation and commitment not only as a component of social responsibility or institutional prestige, but as a commitment to society. Given this we planted a global question: How can you determine which are the best Higher Education Institutions (HEI) comparing Spain with Latin America? This can be achieved by using indicators that measure Intellectual Capital (IC) through parameters such as research, scientific production, corporate image, customer satisfaction and infrastructure; and this is done by the World Universities Rankings (WUR). The objective of this paper is to compare the positions reached and the methodology used by four WUR: ARWU, THE, QS and Web of Metrics, with the aim of establishing in an integral way which Iberian and Latin American HEI occupy the main global positions. Through a descriptive empirical study that included a quantitative analysis of information 2018 of the WUR of 47 public HEI in Spain and 39 in Latin America, the latter belonging to 10 countries in the region, through the use of contingency tables and crossings of variables it was determined that 9 Spanish IES together with 4 IES from Brazil, 1 Argentina, 1 Mexican and 1 from Chile, are among the 500 best in the world for their average values and for being present in at least three of the four RMUs referred to.