UP is 4th best university in SEA

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines (UP) is now the fourth best university in Southeast Asia, surging past six higher education institutions in the region in the latest Asian university rankings released by London-based Times Higher Education (THE).

From 156th last year, UP jumped 61 places in the latest rankings of over 400 universities in Asia, entering the top 100 for the first time at 95th place.

Among universities in Southeast Asia, UP is now the fourth best – only behind the National University of Singapore (NUS/second overall, down from last year’s first), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU/sixth, down from fifth) and the University of Malaya in Malaysia (38th, up from 46th).

Six other universities in the region that ranked higher than UP last year are now behind the country’s top university.

These include Malaysia’s Universiti Teknologi Petronas (98th, up from last year’s 114th), Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (111th, down from 99th), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (125th, up from 129th) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (188th, down from 142nd).

Indonesia’s leading university, the University of Indonesia, significantly improved its ranking but is still behind UP at 133rd (from last year’s 201-250).

No other Southeast Asian nation had a university in the list.

Meanwhile, another Philippine university – the De La Salle University – entered the list for the first time at 251-300 spots.

THE ranked over 400 universities in 27 states in Asia using 13 performance indicators grouped into five areas: teaching (learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), industry income (knowledge transfer) and international outlook (staff, students and research).