NUS is No 2 in rankings
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is now one spot away from being ranked Asia’s top university, according to latest rankings from Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), an information provider for higher education.
In fact, it outperformed or matched the top-ranked university – the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) – in seven of the nine indicators.
However, in the papers published per faculty indicator – one of the two areas where NUS did not perform as well in, compared to HKUST – NUS placed outside of the top 50.
The other area is in outbound exchange students where NUS’ score was just a shade under HKUST’s.
The No 2 spot in the rankings is one spot up from last year and the university’s best performance on the ranking since it was introduced in 2009.
The Nanyang Technological University (NTU), meanwhile, retained its 17th spot.
QS this year also published a new ranking of top 50 universities under 50 years old, which saw NTU rank fourth behind the Chinese University of Hong Kong, HKUST and the University of Warwick.
In the 2012 QS ranking, universities were scored on academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, papers per faculty, citations per paper, the proportion of international faculty and international students, inbound exchange students and outbound exchange students.
The NUS ranked first in Asia for employer reputation and second in Asia for academic reputation.
It also saw improvement in three faculty areas: Arts & humanities (first in Asia); engineering & technology (second in Asia); and natural sciences (second in Asia).
The university also retained its top ranking in Asia for social sciences and management.
Said Professor Tan Eng Chye, NUS deputy president (academic affairs) and provost: “Overall, this is a strong international recognition of the excellent work by our faculty and staff in both research and education.”
Meanwhile, NTU ranked sixth for employer reputation and 13th for academic reputation.
In terms of faculties, NTU ranked 16th for Arts & Humanities, eighth for Engineering & Technology, 18th for Life Sciences, 19th for Natural Sciences, and 15th for Social Sciences and Management.
Both NUS and NTU achieved top scores for its proportion of international faculty, along with three other universities.
Professor Bertil Andersson, president of NTU, said: “This inaugural ranking of the QS Top 50 Under 50 provides a good assessment of fast-growing young universities like NTU. NTU’s good performance in this ranking is a testament of the world-class quality education and research environment at NTU.”
Noting that Asia held six of the top 10 places in the Top 50 Under 50 ranking, QS said the prominence of younger Asian institutions could be due to a boom in scientific research.
“China doubled its main scientific research budget between 2009 and 2011, while universities in Singapore and Korea have benefited from multi-billion dollar investment programmes,” it said.
source: Today
