Malaysia swamps Asean's best young university list

Coming hot on the heals of the Times Higher Education (THE) 2018 World Reputation Rankings and the 2018 Emerging Economies University Rankings comes the THE 2018 Young University Rankings, with tertiary institutions from Malaysia dominating with seven entries.

While in some other ‘top universities’ lists institutions with generations of achievements and published papers receive a solid boost for historic accomplishments, the 2018 Young University Rankings concentrates on the world’s top new universities under 50 years of ages and what they have done in that time, and where they are going. In many ways more accurately reflecting what is happening in tertiary institutions today, rather than what happened a century or two ago.

Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is Asean’s highest ranked young university in the list, maintaining its number three global ranking from last year behind Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. After that it’s a long way down to Asean’s next entry.

Leading seven Malaysian universities into the 2018 Young University Rankings is Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar), which maintained its ranking from last year in the 101-150 bracket.

Asean's top young universities for 2018 — Asean’s top young universities for 2018 AEC News Today Digital

Also maintain their ranking from last year in the 150-200 bracket is Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), and Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), while Universiti Putra Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) joined them, falling from their 101-150 bracket ranking in last year’s list.

Bringing new blood into the list is Universiti Tenaga Nasional (Uniten).

Established in 1976 by utility company Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Uniten is a private university located 40 kilometres (about 25 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur, offering an increasing range of engineering, information technology, and business management programmes.

Housing 24 research centres, Uniten has a vision of becoming a leading university in in the field of global energy.

Ranked 11th in our Asean sub-list of THEs Emerging Economies University Rankings 2018 where it was ranked 159 globally, Uniten enters the 2018 Young University Rankings in the 201–250 bracket.

For other Asean member states its all bad news after that. No other Asean universities are contained in the list.

The 2018 THE Young University Rankings contains 250 entries, an increase of 50 over 2017, with tertiary institutions from 55 countries, an increase of seven over last year, represented.

THE says the methodology used for the Young University Rankings is the same as that used for its World University Rankings, with weightings recalibrated to reflect the profile missions of young universities.

Thirteen performance indicators are calibrated, with universities that have failed to publish 1,000 papers between 2012 and 2016, and a minimum of 150 a year being excluded. Similarly universities which don’t teach undergraduates are also excluded.

Feature photo College of Information Technology (Uniten)

Related:

NUS & NTU Drive Singapore Higher Education Up in New University Ranking (AEC News Today)
University Malaya Tops Asean Emerging Economies University List (AEC News Today)
University Rankings: Malaysia Emerges as Higher Education Hub – Singapore’s Nanyang Dethrones NUS (AEC News Today)