Comillas Pontifical University

Comillas Pontifical University is a private university in Madrid, Spain. It is a Catholic university run by the Society of Jesus.Comillas is the only Spanish university that appears in the Times Higher Education 2013 ranking.The university is involved in a number of academic exchange programmes, work practice schemes and international projects with over 200 institutions of higher education in Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia.HistoryPope Leo XIII founded the Seminary of St. Anthony of Padua in 1890 in the town of Comillas, Cantabria, in response to efforts made by the Marquis of Comillas to build an institution for educating local candidates to the priesthood. At the time of its foundation, the seminary was entrusted to the Society of Jesus. In 1904, the seminary was raised to the status of a Pontifical university when Pope Pius X granted the school the power to confer academic degrees in theology, philosophy and canon law.In 1969 the university was moved to Madrid, where it admitted a wider range of students.In 1978 the Jesuits incorporated into the university their Madrid's higher education institution ICAI-ICADE, the resultant entity of the merger in 1960 of ICAI and ICADE, two institutes established in 1908 and 1956 respectively. They are today the ICAI School of Engineering, the ICADE School of Law and the ICADE School of Business and Economics.