For a ring extension is called a universally catenarian pair if every domain , is universally catenarian. When R is a field it is shown that the only universally catenarian pairs are those satisfying . For several satisfactory results are given. The second purpose of this paper is to study going-down pairs (Definition 5.1). We characterize these pairs of rings and we establish a relationship between universally catenarian, going-down and residually algebraic pairs.