KUALA LUMPUR: Five Malaysian universities have made it to the top 400 in the prestigious QS World University Rankings 2014 survey.

The country’s top university, Universiti Malaya (UM), is ranked number 151, followed by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) at the 259th spot.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), which is based in Johor, is at number 294, improving over 60 places compared with last year.

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) are ranked 309 and 376 respectively.

All five institutions improved on their rankings compared with last year.

In the survey last year, UM was ranked 167th and UKM, 269th. UTM and USM were both at the 355th spot while UPM was in the 411-420 ranking.

The criteria used by QS to rank the universities are academic reputation, employer reputation, student to faculty ratio, papers per faculty, citations per paper, internationalisation and student exchange programmes.

QS grades a total of 863 tertiary institutions out of the over 3,000 that it assesses.

Universiti Teknologi Mara made the biggest jump, up from the 701-plus level to the 651-700 group.

However, the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) did not improve its position and remained in the 501-550 category.

In a statement yesterday on this year’s survey, QS Quacquarelli Symonds — which publishes the QS World University Rankings — said with the exception of IIUM, all the other universities had improved or remained stable in three out of the six ranking indicators.

The indicators were Academic Reputation, International Faculty and Citation per Faculty.

“USM is the only institution that had improved across all six indicators,” said the organisation that has been ranking universities in the world for a decade.

However, Malaysian universities are still trailing top regional schools like the National University of Singapore (24th), University of Hong Kong (26th), Australian National University (27th), University of Tokyo (32nd) and Seoul University (35th).

In the QS World University Rankings that emphasises high-impact scientific and technological research as the key driver of leadership, the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the table again for the third year.

MIT increased year-on-year citations per faculty by 14% while the University of Cambridge at second place recorded an 11% increase and third-ranked Imperial College London reported a 14% increase.

The performance of Imperial College in citations per faculty helped it become the biggest climber in the top 10, leapfrogging Harvard University (fourth), Oxford University (fifth) and University College London (sixth) to rank second, tied with the University of Cambridge.

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a private research university in Pasadena, California maintained its position as the world’s top university for research citations.

Caltech was eighth in the top 10. Stanford University took seventh place while Princeton University and Yale University were at ninth and 10th place respectively.

The QS World University Rankings is one of the best-known and respected annual league tables of the top world universities. It is compiled by the QS Intelligence Unit in close consultation with an international advisory board of leading academics. — The Malaysian Insider


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on September 17, 2014.