Ateneo, UP top Philippines universities in THE rankings

MANILA, Philippines —  Six Philippine universities landed in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings, with Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) and the University of the Philippines (UP) being rated as the country’s top universities.

UP and ADMU placed in the 501-600 bracket this year. While UP’s ranking was the same as last year, ADMU’s ranking had been slipping since being ranked 84th in Asia in 2023.

In last year’s iteration, ADMU was in the 401-500 bracket making it the lone top university since 2023.

Meanwhile, this was the first time since 2022 that UP, which has dominated the country’s universities in most international assessments, was named top university in the country.

UP first entered the rankings in 2017, debuting at the 201-250 bracket. From 2019 to 2022, it had been within the Top 100 universities in the region. Since then, its rankings under THE Asia had dropped.

Meanwhile, De La Salle University (DLSU), Mapua University, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-Iligan) and the University of Santo Tomas (UST) were named second best universities in the country – all landing at the 601+ bracket.

This is MSU-Iligan’s debut at the ranking, having been under “Reporter” status since 2023. A “Reporter” is a college/university that sends data to THE, but is not eligible for a rank.

DLSU’s ranking this year was a drop from last year’s 501-600 bracket, while UST and Mapua remained under the same bracket as last year’s.

Eight Philippine schools were granted reporter status: De La Salle College of St. Benilde, Lyceum Northwestern University, Manila Central University, National University, Philippine State College of Aeronautics, Quezon City University, St. Louis University and the University of the Immaculate Conception.

They are joining five other schools that remained reporters this year: Cebu Technological University, Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Tarlac Agricultural University, Visayas State University, University of Eastern Philippines and Central Luzon State University.

This year’s ranking involved 853 universities from 35 countries in the continent.

THE rates universities under five performance indicators: Teaching (the learning environment); Research environment (volume, income and reputation); Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research), and Industry (income and patents).

While tied in the same bracket, ADMU was higher than UP in terms of research quality and teaching. UP, meanwhile, was the top performer in terms of industry and research environment. UST was named top performer in international outlook.