UM joins top 50 in Asia

UNIVERSITY of Malaya (UM) has made it to the top 50 of the 2018 Asia University Rankings released by Times Higher Education (THE) on Feb 7.

It has climbed up to the 46th position, after making its debut at number 59 last year.

Eight other Malaysian universities also made the list in the rankings this year with Universiti Tuanku Abdul Rahman reaching 99th position from last year’s 111-120 bracket and Universiti Teknologi Petronas sharing the 114th position, up from the 141-150 bracket.

However, most of Malaysia’s lower ranked universities have declined in position.

According to THE, Malaysia’s leading institution improved in all five areas underpinning the ranking — teaching, research, citation impact, industry income and international outlook.

THE editorial director of global rankings, Phil Baty, said: “It is great news that the UM

The rankings show that the Southeast Asian region is beginning to stand out.

National University of Singapore Singapore Hong Kong Hong Kong South Korea has joined the top 50 of this prestigious ranking; it now overtakes leading institutions such as the University of Macau, Kyushu University, National Chiao Tung University and Qatar University.”

Malaysia’s universities generally have a strong international outlook and achieve quite high levels of industry income.

The country’s weakest area is citation impact but this was an area of improvement this year. “Malaysia also picked up points for research productivity. However, the country’s scores for its proportion of international students, student-staff ratio and income per staff all declined,” he added.

“Malaysia is among the Asian nations with the greatest higher education potential, largely thanks to its rapid growth in research productivity and high levels of income. It now needs to improve its research quality to stand out among the heavy competition in the world’s largest continent.”

In a separate statement, UM vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Abdul Rahim Hashim said the improvement in rankings is an affirmation of the university’s strategic plan as it continues to strive to be an internationally renowned institution of higher learning in teaching, research, publication and innovation.

UM’s rise in rankings is also a testament that the investments and initiatives, which were undertaken over several years to improve the performance of the university, are on track, he added.

Abdul Rahim reiterated that UM is not pursuing rankings but its participation in the ranking systems is to benchmark it against other institutions of higher learning to gauge