The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid (, UPM) is a public university, located in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Technical Schools of Engineering and Architecture, originating mainly in the 18th century. Over 35,000 students attend classes during the year. According to the annual university ranking conducted by El Mundo, the Technical University of Madrid ranks as the top technical university in Spain, and second overall. The majority of its Engineering Schools are consistently ranked as leading academic institutions in Spain in their fields, and among the very best in Europe. The UPM is part of the TIME network, which groups fifty engineering schools throughout Europe. History The Technical University of Madrid (UPM) was founded in 1971, although the majority of its Centres are over hundreds of years old and were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. Each of them maintained their independence until being grouped together to form the UPM in 1971. It is no exaggeration to state that for over one and a half centuries great part of the history of Spanish technology has been written by the Schools of Architecture and Engineering of the UPM. They have been during a lot of years nearly the only and in some cases actually the only school. All of the important personalities in the area of teaching and research passed through their respective centres as students or lecturers. One of the oldest records of technological studies in Spain is the Royal Academy of Mathematics in Madrid, leaving aside the Quatrivium of arithmetics, geometry, astronomy and music, the four liberal arts, that form the base of the technical disciplines, which were studied in the monastic and cathedral schools and later in the medieval and renaissance universities. The Royal Academy of Mathematics was created after the idea and personal initiative of King Philip II after his return from a visit to Portugal in 1582, where he realised that the Portuguese cartographers were more advanced than those in Spain. The Academy did not award qualifications that entitled to exercise a profession. Its prestige was based on the lecturers and subjects taught. Cartographers, pilots, architects and engineers were trained in a way that the latter two started to gain a certain degree of recognition. In 1643 the Academy was closed down. The second relevant record of technological studies was the