When it comes to research citation among higher education institutions (HEIs) in Southeast Asia (SEA), the University of the Philippines (UP) is number one.
UP has outranked universities in neighboring countries in terms of global research influence, according to the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR).
The country’s national university obtained a score of 86.7 in the citations criterion, surpassing the citation scores of the top four ranking universities in the region which are the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), University of Malaya, and the University of Brunei Darussalam.
NUS and NTU got 81.5 and 83.0 for citation, respectively.
“THE-WUR comes out with the citation score by capturing the average number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally,” UP said.
Aside from research citation, THE assesses universities based on their performance in the areas of teaching, research, international outlook, and industry income.
According to THE-WUR, UP also maintained its position among the world’s top 500 HEIs after being evaluated alongside 1,527 universities around the globe.
“[Citation] has been our strongest criterion, propelling UP to be among the top 500 universities in the world in the last five years,” UP Vice President for Academic Affairs Ma. Cynthia Rose Bautista said.
“Interestingly, UP was among the top 10 universities in the world in terms of its citation score in the clinical, pre-clinical, and health disciplines in 2020,” Bautista added.
UP got an overall score of 39.8–43.5 from THE’s 2021 rankings. The Philippines’ top university received 23.5 for teaching, 16.0 for research, 86.7 for citation, 39.5 for industry income, and 33.4 for international outlook.
It was in 2017 when UP first appeared in the THE-WUR where it placed in the 801+ bracket. The University’s ranking consistently improved since then. UP climbed to the 601-800 position in 2018, 501-600 in 2019, and 401-500 in 2020 and 2021.
De La Salle University is the only other HEI in the country to be included in THE-WUR as part of the world’s best 1,001+ universities in 2021.