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UM CLIMBS INTO TOP 40 IN TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION (THE) ASIA UNIVERSITY RANKINGS 2019

The recent release of the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings (AUR) on 2 May 2019 showed that University of Malaya (UM) is ranked 38th, rising eight places from its position in 2018. This new rank placed UM among 40 best universities in Asia. This year is the third year that sees UM participating in the THE-AUR rankings. Over these past three years, UM has made significant improvements from the position of 59th in 2017 to 46th in 2018 before making it to where we are this year. 

As this is UM’s new milestone by breaking into the top 40 of the THE-AUR, these new rankings further endorsed all the achievements the University has been making and a further indication of UM’s continued improvement in the ranking system of Times Higher Education (THE). These achievements are also re-affirms the University’s Strategic Plan and initiatives taken over several years as UM continue to strive to be an internationally preferred institution of higher learning in teaching, research, publication and innovation.

UM’s Vice-Chancellor, Datuk Ir. (Dr.) Abdul Rahim Hj. Hashim is in great delight however acknowledged that UM is not pursuing ranking just for ranking’s sake, but beyond to benchmark UM against other institutions of higher learning in order to gauge the present state and status of the University and to plan for further improvements. The Vice-Chancellor also added that over the years UM has continued to strengthen its fundamentals in teaching & learning and research. But it is also pertinent for UM to continue to improve in the area of graduate employability, networking and collaboration with industries and international strategic partnerships. 

Datuk Abdul Rahim would like to thank the University community - staff and students as well as University partners and collaborators for their commitment and contribution towards the achievement of the university’s performance. He is grateful to the Ministry of Education (MoE) for its unwavering support and hopes that the Ministry will provide stronger support for UM to continue to climb the ranking ladder and make the nation proud. 

As reported, THE Asia edition of the rankings uses the same 13 calibrated performance indicators as the prestigious THE World University Rankings. However, the weightage is specially recalibrated to reflect the priorities of Asian institutions. The 2019 rankings feature 417 institutions, expanded from 359 universities last year. There are five major areas measuring the performance indicators – teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. The rise in rankings was largely due to improvements in its scores for teaching environment, citation impact and industry income, as well as a large boost in its international outlook score.

Last Update: Sep 18, 2019