NUS climbs 23 places in global university rankings

The National University of Singapore (NUS) was ranked 111th among the world's universities, helped by improvements in the field of Engineering and Technology and Computer Sciences.

The university said on Friday (Aug 15) that it jumped 23 places from 2013's 134th placing in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), and remains within the 101-150 band of more than 1,200 varsities ranked each year.

The rankings were conducted by the Centre for World-Class Universities (CWCU) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, which started the project back in 2003.



ARWU uses six indicators to rank world universities: The number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; the number of Highly Cited Researchers; the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science; the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index; and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution.

ARWU lists the best 500 of the 1,200 universities it ranks every year.

In terms of broad subject fields, NUS' Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences rose to 16th position from 2013's 51-75 ranking band. Social Sciences also moved up a band from last year's 101-150 to 76-100 this year.

As for specific subject fields, Computer Science came in at 45th, up from the 51-75 band of 2013 while Economics/Business came in at the 51-75 band, NUS stated.

Said NUS President Professor Tan Chorh Chuan: "We are pleased that NUS is rated among the best universities in the world and continuing to make strong progress in research. It is particularly heartening that NUS is ranked 16th in the world for Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences, and that we continue to make significant impact in Economics/Business, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Mathematics and Physics."

Separately, the Nanyang Technological University went up 79 spots to be placed 190 in the ARWU. It also leapt to 12th position in the broad subject field of Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences - an improvement from its previous ranking of 47.