PETALING JAYA: A record number of 22 Malaysian universities are in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2023 compared with 18 last year.
The four new additions to the rankings were Sunway University (801-1000), Universiti Malaysia Pahang (801-1000), Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (1201-1500) and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (1501+).
The latest edition of the global university rankings also saw Universiti Malaya maintaining pole position as the country's top performing institution, despite dropping from the 301-350 band to the 351-400 band.
THE World University Rankings 2023, which measured institutions across 13 performance metrics to provide an overview of a university’s quality, was released at 9am on Wednesday (Oct 12).
Singapore had two universities in the World Rankings, both were ranked in the world top 50: National University of Singapore at 19th spot and Nanyang Technological University at 36th.
China had 95 universities in the rankings; Indonesia and Thailand had a total of 18 each, followed by six from Vietnam and four from the Philippines.
Describing Singapore as a growing world powerhouse for excellence in higher education, THE chief knowledge officer Phil Baty said it was worrying that other Asean nations were falling behind the global competition.
"Although Vietnam has retained the positions of its leading universities, Malaysia’s flagship UM has dropped out of the world top 350, the University of the Philippines has dropped out of the world top 800 list, and the University of Indonesia has fallen out of the world top 1,000.
"Some of Thailand’s leading universities have also slipped," he said in a press release.
Baty said he hoped that greater cooperation and integration in higher education and research across Asean, the influence of Singapore’s world-leading status as a global hub for research excellence, and more activity with thriving neighbours to the North in East Asia and South in Oceania, would lead to a revival of the region’s universities.
International competition, however, was extremely intense, he said, adding that funding requirements were extremely demanding and you had to run very fast just to stand still in the global rankings.
Globally, UK’s University of Oxford retained the top spot for the seventh consecutive year, with Harvard University, United States, and University of Cambridge, UK, coming in second and third respectively.
A record number of 1,799 universities from 104 countries and regions were ranked, 137 more than last year.
The number of US universities represented in the top 100 continued to fall, from a peak of 43 in 2018, to 34 this year.
For more information, visit www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2023.
