For the first time in 11 years, UST has secured a ranking in the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings, placing third among Philippine schools.
In the 12th edition of the rankings, released locally on Wednesday, UST landed within the 601+ bracket with an overall score of 14.7-24, sharing the third spot with Mapúa University.
Ateneo de Manila University retained its position as the top-ranked school in the country, although it dropped to the 401-500 range from 84th overall in the 2023 edition.
The University of the Philippines and De La Salle University, both in the 501-600 range, tied for second place.
UST, which only earned a “reporter” status in the 2023 rankings, was the top Philippine university in the international outlook indicator with a score of 67.
It secured the third position in industry (20.7) and teaching (23.4), and the fifth spot in both research environment (11.5) and the newly introduced research quality (21.3) indices.
Ateneo achieved the highest scores in research quality, industry, and teaching, while UP ranked highest in research environment.
For the 2024 rankings, the THE did away with the citations indicator and replaced it with research quality.
According to THE’s lead data scientist Billy Wong, the introduction of new research quality metrics in the THE rankings has helped highlight “research strength that was previously not completely recognized in the ranking.”
“Now that we’re also looking at research that is cited above average and is cited by other influential research, we can really see which regions are producing world-changing research,” Wong said.
THE’s methodology has also been updated to include a metric that tracks the frequency of a university’s research citations in patents, which is part of the industry pillar.
“[The new metric] allow[ed] us to measure the level of knowledge transfer from academia to industry in a much more direct way. This [gave] us new insights into the positive impacts of universities on wider society,” David Watkins, THE’s managing director of data science, said.
The new research quality indicator held the highest weight in the rankings at 30 percent, followed by research environment at 28 percent, teaching at 24.5 percent, industry at 10 percent, and international outlook at 7.5 percent.
Tsinghua University and Peking University of China secured the top positions in the rankings, scoring 88.2 and 87.8 overall, respectively. The National University of Singapore was third overall with an 87.2 score.
In the 2024 THE World University Rankings, published in September 2023, UST also ranked for the first time, tying for third place among Philippine schools with De La Salle University.
Two Philippine universities were declared reporter institutions in the 2024 Asian rankings: the University of Eastern Philippines and the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines.
