London-based magazine Times Higher Education (THE) has placed the University of the Philippines in the world’s top 500 universities and fourth in the ASEAN region, according to the 2020 THE World University Rankings.

The national university is listed in the 401-500 group of 1,396 ranked research universities.

This is UP’s fourth year in the rankings.

It was included for the first time in 2017 among the top 1,000. The succeeding rankings showed marked improvement for UP as it climbed to the top 800 in the 2018 edition and to the top 600 for 2019.

THE assesses research-intensive universities based on 13 performance indicators in five areas: teaching (30 percent), research (30 percent), citations (30 percent), international outlook (7.5 percent) and industry income (2.5 percent).

For 2020, UP has been ranked 159th in citations which places it in the top 11 percent of prestigious universities that have “influence in spreading new knowledge and ideas.” Its score in citations went up from last year’s 69.1 to 86.9. THE relied on Elsevier’s database of over 23,400 academic journals and indexed publications to measure the research influence of an institution.

UP also scored better in teaching (from 21.7 to 24.1), research (from 16.4 to 17.2) and industry income (from 35.8 to 39.4). A global academic reputation survey partly determines the scores for teaching and research.

UP, however, slipped in international outlook, with its score down from 39.5 to 37.9. International outlook considers the number of international students and staff as well as international collaboration.

Only two universities from the Philippines appeared in the latest table. UP is still the leading university in the country.

THE publishes some of the most influential rankings used by the global academic community which include the Asia University RankingsAsia-Pacific University RankingsEmerging Economies University Rankings, and the World University Rankings by Subject.

Original article ovpaa.up.edu.ph