KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — The University of Malaya (UM) is among the top 350 institutions listed in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, its best showing to date.
A record 11 Malaysian universities also made it into the ladder this year, up from nine previously, with Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak adding to Malaysia’s representation in the the global list of 1,250 higher education institutions from 86 countries.
“It is great to see Malaysia’s national flagship university, University of Malaya, making strong progress up the ranking this year,” editorial director of the global rankings, Phil Baty, said in a statement.
“We use 13 separate performance indicators to assess research universities across all of their core activities ― including teaching, internationalisation, knowledge-transfer and research ― using trusted and demanding globally defined metrics.
“On this basis, it is also good to see more Malaysian universities appearing in the rankings overall, with two new entrants,” Baty added.
In last year’s edition, UM was in the 351-400 band. Its rise was due to improvements across the board, particularly in its international outlook (staff, students and research) score, THE said.
The next best performing Malaysian university was Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman that made the 501-600 band.
Four local universities were in the 601-800 band: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi Petronas.
Universiti Utara Malaysia also improved, jumping up from the 1,000+ band to the 801-1,000 band.
Two other local universities were on the 801-1,000 band, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Tenaga Nasional, with the former being the only local university to fall from a higher band this year.
United Kingdom’s University of Oxford and University of Cambridge topped the global list, but the United States remains the best-represented nation in the table with 172 institutions.
National University of Singapore placed 23rd, the second highest-ranking Asian university, just below China’s Tsinghua University.
The rankings judge research-intensive universities across each one of their core missions: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation), international outlook (staff, students and research); citations (research influence); industry income (knowledge transfer).
It is independently audited by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
