QS World Universities Rankings By Subject 2019 saw the University of Malaya (UM) maintaining as one of the world’s leading universities by achieving Top 100 for 3 broad areas, Top 100 for 17 subjects, and Top 50 for 3 subjects. The three (3) academic disciplines ranked within the Top 50 include Library and Information Management (31st rank), Development Studies (38th), and Electrical & Electronic Engineering (47th).
UM scored in 46 subjects out of 48 relevant subjects, of which 34 subjects were ranked. This overall score across the 46 subjects currently featured in the QS World University Rankings by Subjects puts UM as being a comprehensive university. This is because it is very unusual for an institution to qualify for consideration in all 48 subjects. These subject areas achievements provide important and useful information on the performance of a university as 1,222 institutions have been ranked this year.
In the broad subject areas ranking, Engineering & Technology is UM’s strongest field and is ranked at 38 with an overall score of 84.5. This was followed by Social Sciences & Management with a rank of 55 and an overall score of 77.4. Although UM’s Academic and Employer Reputations indicators have dipped for some subjects, UM’s Citation per Paper and H-Index scores continues to increase.
UM’s Vice-Chancellor, Datuk Ir. (Dr.) Abdul Rahim Hj. Hashim emphasized that UM’s Strategic Plan needs to be relooked as improvements in teaching and learning requires provision of high quality academic programmes in this Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 economy. He recognized that UM is now facing enormous challenges to moving further ahead, in view of the financial constraints. These challenges arising from the current economic conditions require also that the University needs to find additional sources of funding and venture into income-generating activities to support its internationalization efforts, and to continue to intensify research. Datuk Abdul Rahim believes that UM will need strong support from both the Malaysian Government and industries in order for UM to make further advances.
Datuk Abdul Rahim also thanked the Ministry of Education for its continued support. He hopes that the UM community will continue to put in concerted efforts to build a stronger academic future in the coming years.
