NUS, NTU rise in Shanghai rankings for research universities

National University of Singapore (NUS) at Lower Kent Ridge Road. The country's two leading universities have climbed the university league tables most trusted by academics around the world. -- PHOTO: ST
National University of Singapore (NUS) at Lower Kent Ridge Road. The country's two leading universities have climbed the university league tables most trusted by academics around the world. -- PHOTO: ST

SINGAPORE - The country's two leading universities have climbed the university league tables most trusted by academics around the world.

In the annual Shanghai Jiaotong Academic Ranking of World Universities released noon, Friday, the National University of Singapore (NUS) jumped 23 places to position 111 while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) moved up 79 places to the 190th spot.

With the latest ranking, NUS remains in the 101-150 band while NTU moves up from the 200 - 300 category to the 150 - 200 band. Universities that are ranked 101 to 500 are placed in bands in the published tables, although the specific rankings are released to the institutions.

Both universities also scored in some of the rankings for broad disciplines and specific subject fields this year. NTU and NUS were placed among the top 50 in the field of engineering/technology and computer sciences.

The rankings published yearly by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University is skewed towards research-intensive universities and older institutions but preferred by many academics because of its use of objective criteria.

Other rankings such as the ones done by Times Higher Education Magazine and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) also give weightage to reviews by academics and employers.

To compile the Shanghai rankings, researchers take into account major awards - Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals won by alumni and staff, the number of researchers widely cited in their fields, the number of researchers who author journal articles in Science and Nature, and the number of articles published by affiliates of a school that are recorded in the major bibliographical indexes of academic publications. A school's performance is weighted according to its size.

Harvard University remained No 1 in the world for the 12th year, and other Top 10 universities included Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Berkeley, Cambridge, and Oxford.

In Asia, the two most highly ranked universities were both from Japan. University of Tokyo was ranked 21st while Kyoto University was ranked 26th.

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