UNIVERSITI Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has clinched the 70th position among the top 200 universities in Asia in the fourth annual rankings published by the Times Higher Education.
The university has joint ranking with Chung-Ang University in South Korea and National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan in the Asia University Rankings 2016 while Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) is in the top 130, Universiti Sains Malaysia the top 150 and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia the top 170 respectively.
Singapore took the top two places with The National University of Singapore in top position and Nanyang Technological University in joint second place with Peking University. The top five is completed by the University of Hong Kong in fourth place and Tsinghua University in fifth, also giving China two places in the top five.
Within Asean, there are seven Thai universities in the top 100 led by Mahidol University in 90th place. The University of Indonesia appears in the 181-190 band and is Indonesia’s only ranked institution.
“South East Asia is one of the most exciting and dynamic regions in world higher education and research today. Not only is it home to Asia’s top two universities (both in Singapore), it is also at the centre of significant initiatives to drive up the quality of universities – and to put them at the heart of the region’s economic growth," said Phil Baty, Times Higher Education rankings editor.
"While the region has major challenges, not least in building a stronger research infrastructure, the increased policy focus on competitive universities, combined with the increased harmonisation of higher education systems across the Asean area, and the heightened global visibility of the region’s universities driving an increased hunger for global collaborations with the region, all points to a healthy future, " he said.
In a related news report by Times Higher Education, UTM's vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Ir. Dr. Wahid Omar said the Asean University Network has “harmonised quality assurance”, facilitated credit-transfer mechanisms and strengthened “provision of technical and vocational education and training for Asean’s growing economic needs”.
Malaysia aims to be the “education hub” of South-east Asia, he said.
But he remarked that for Malaysian and other Asean universities to reach the level of those in Singapore, China, Hong Kong and South Korea, institutions must focus on the “quadruple helix” – the “cooperation of academia, industry, the government and the people” to help “spur the country’s quantum leap”.
The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2016 use the same the performance indicators as the World University Rankings, but have been recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia’s institutions.
The universities are judged across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook – to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available.
In the QS World University Rankings 2016 released last week, Universiti Putra Malaysia now ranks 49th among the top 50 Asian universities while University of Malaya attained the rank of 27.
Full results and analysis of the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2016 can be found at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/regi... .