Research quality key to higher varsity rankings
PETALING JAYA: Seven Malaysian universities are in Times Higher Education’s (THE) inaugural Asia-Pacific University Rankings.
Of these, five are in the top 200 with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) joint top for Malaysia.
Both UPM and UTM are in the joint 121-130 band.
The other institutions listed in the rankings are Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Mara and Universiti Utara Malaysia (see table).
THE rankings editor Phil Baty said Malaysian universities generally performed well in their international outlook, but achieved low scores for research impact (citations).
“While the country is building its research capacity, it will need to improve the quality of research if it wants to improve its standing in this ranking in future years,” he said in a press statement.
The National University of Singapore claims the top spot followed by Peking University, the University of Melbourne, Tsinghua University and Nanyang Technological University in second, third, fourth and fifth places respectively.
“The Asia-Pacific is considered one of the most important higher education and research regions in the world and this ranking proves what a diverse and dynamic part of the world it is,” said Baty.
He said Indonesia and Malaysia are two emerging players that are shown to have great potential, if they can improve the quantity and quality of research in the same vein as some of their neighbours.
“Overall, the ranking provides a picture of the countries and universities that are set to become world-leading higher education players over the coming years.
“There is no doubt that several of these will be within the Asia-Pacific,” he added.
The Asia-Pacific University Rankings use the same 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments as the THE World University Rankings.
However, the weightings are specially recalibrated to reflect the priorities of Asian institutions.