Times Higher Education’s (THE) Asia University Rankings 2023

by StudyMalaysia.com on July 11, 2023 | Top Stories

Times Higher Education’s (THE) Asia University Rankings 2023 - StudyMalaysia.com

Times Higher Education has been and is one of the most trusted and credible references for information regarding higher education worldwide. The rankings of universities provide young people and their families with trusted guidance to help them make one of the most important decisions of their lives - Where to study? It represents a reliable source of data, insight, and expertise on higher education. The information given is based on years of a relationship with about 1799 institutions across 104 countries. Thus, it is a trusted avenue that students can fall back on to help them make informed decisions that will define their futures.

University rankings are made based on considerations of a few main criteria:

Teaching and the learning environment - This has direct relevance to the students going to study. Attention is given to reputation survey, the ratio of staff to students, the ratio of doctorate students to undergraduate students, and the number of doctorates awarded per academic staff. The belief is that the quality of teaching at a university affects the quality of its research, knowledge production, and knowledge transfer.
Research - It is definitely an advantage to be taught by people who are not only good teachers but also good researchers. By evaluating universities based on their research output can help educators and researchers identify the institutions that are making significant contributions to the different fields. The research component gives students a broader educational experience, and students are able to explore the effects of applying new processes through study and testing.
Citation - The visibility and the impact of research work done at a university are seen in how much citations it receives. This year shows Asia’s growing influence on the spread of knowledge and ideas across the world, as measured by research publication citations. Over the past five years, countries in the region have significantly improved their average citation score, which measures research influence by capturing the average number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally.
Knowledge transfer - This is a process that allows research results, discoveries, scientific findings, intellectual property, technology, data, and know-how to flow among different stakeholders. This is a way to provide insight into potential approaches for research. It involves the creation, sharing, evaluation, dissemination, and adoption of knowledge.
International Outlook - This is a marker of the university’s popularity to both local and international students. It takes into consideration international to domestic staff ratio and the proportions of research that involve international collaboration.

The 2023 Asia University Rankings feature institutions from 31 territories. This is the 11th edition of THE’s Asia University Rankings, and this year 669 universities are ranked, up from 616 last year. Thirty-one countries/regions are represented from Turkey in the west to Japan in the east. Most universities included in the rankings come from Japan (117), followed by mainland China (95), India (75), Iran (65), and Turkey (61).

Mainland China takes the top two positions for the fourth consecutive year (Tsinghua University & Peking University) The National University of Singapore takes the third position for the fourth consecutive year.

A total of 22 Malaysian institutions feature in the rankings this year, but only 3 manage to make it into the top 100. Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) has gone from being the top private university in Malaysia to the top university in the country. It is ranked 63rd in the THE’s Asia University Rankings, up from 95th last year. Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) also made it into the top 100 of this ranking. UM is ranked 66th (a drop from 55th last year) while Universiti Utara Malaysia is ranked 99th this year from 148th last year and 155th in 2021.

As rankings by different bodies are done using different criteria, results of rankings may be a bit different from one to another. Thus, at the end of the day going to the most expensive or the most prestigious university does not necessarily translate to a good education or experience. The bottom line is still to find a university that best suits your goals and where you can complete your entire degree happily.

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