In the future smarter territories are expected to induce transformations of many aspects of the learning processes, but how their smartness is and will be related to that of the learning ecosystems ? In this paper, by means of Principal Component Analysis, we critically analyse methods presently used to benchmark and produce University rankings, by focusing on the case study of the Italian Universities. The outcomes of such analysis allow us to demonstrate the existence of a strong correlation between smart cities' and universities' rankings, i.e. between learning ecosystems and their territories of reference. Present benchmarking approaches, however, need to take in more consideration people feelings and expectations. Accordingly we suggest an innovative point of view on the benchmarking of learning ecosystems based, also, on the so called flow.