UM in varsity list’s top 400

KUALA LUMPUR: UNIVERSITI Malaya (UM) has entered the top 400 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), making it the highest-ranked Malaysian institution in the list.

UM is ranked 377 this year, a marked improvement from its position in the 401 to 500 group last year.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin said the result was encouraging and a testament to the university’s strategic plan, which had been put in place since 2011, to boost fundamentals in teaching, learning, research, innovation and publication.

“The result puts UM higher in the league of premier universities and suggests that UM is competitive internationally,” he said in a statement.

ARWU is considered to be one of the three most influential and widely observed international university rankings,along with the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The Centre for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which produces the annual list, said UM stood out as it had highly-cited researchers and more than 2,000 Web of Science papers published by its academic staff.

Amin, however, said the ARWU rating was merely an indicator of UM’s position relative to other universities in the world.

More news, read here: http://www.nst.com.my/node/23634

Source: New Straits Times, 16 August 2014