September 30 2015 – Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has been ranked #401-500 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2015-16.
This is the first citation for UTM in the 12 year history of the THE World University Rankings exercise. What is even more significant is that UTM is the top Malaysia University cited in the rankings.
Malaysia is one of 70 countries included in the THE World University Rankings 2015-16 with 5 Malaysian Universities ranked for the first time in the Top 800 Universities.
The University Management is pleased that UTM has merit a place among the leading universities in the world and top in Malaysia. UTM’s good performance is due to the strong commitment by UTM faculty, staff and students at all levels to strive for the best to continue to soar high.
UTM’s strongest pillar was International Outlook. UTM also did well in the Teaching and Citation pillars.
UTM will continue to enhance its Research and Industry Income pillar by strengthening its research capacity and capability. It will also continue to establish strong networking and linkages with significant partners across the globe in areas of mutual interests.
The top management believes that the entire UTM community will continue to strengthen its stature as a leading innovation-driven Entrepreneurial Research University that is academically and intellectually rigorous and vibrant.
However, it should be noted that rankings although useful for benchmarking, should neither be viewed as the only measure of excellence, nor should it dictate how UTM should move forward. UTM will continue to be focused on the fundamentals of education, which will lead to a vibrant knowledge ecosystem.
The rankings are based on 13 separate performance indicators reflecting a university’s performance in five areas, namely, teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), industry income (knowledge transfer) and international outlook (staff, students and research). For the 2015-16 ranking exercise, 400,009 data points from 1,126 universities in 88 countries were examined.
Phil Baty, editor of the THE World University Rankings, asserts that “The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, now in their 12th year, apply rigorous standards, using tough global benchmarks across all of a global research university’s key missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The results are trusted by students and their families, academics, university leaders and governments.”
Thus, for Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to make 401-500 in the world is indeed an outstanding achievement which should be celebrated.