KMUTT flies the Thai flag among 350 top universities

In the 2013-2014 World University Rankings released recently, THE referred to KMUTT’s improvement, saying: “Thailand’s only top-400 representative, King Mongkut’s University of Technology, rose from the 351-400 group into the 301-350 band.”

Rankings editor Phil Baty said KMUTT had performed well when it came to attracting income from industry and also in terms of citations. For citations, KMUTT scored 75.4 out of a total of 100 points. According to Baty, a good score for citation means its academics are producing research that is widely used and valued by the global academic community. 

Times Higher Education, a London-based magazine, uses five key indicators for the ranking, namely citations, teaching, research, industry income and international outlook. 

KMUTT scored 62.2 in industry income, while its teaching, research and international outlook scores stood at 13, 10 and 24.4 respectively. 

KMUTT president Assoc Professor Sakarindr Bhumiratana said the higher ranking stemmed from his institute’s focus on the quality of its graduates, its research as well as on collaboration with stakeholders. He said KMUTT’s score for teaching was rather low because THE had taken into account the ratio of lecturers to students. 

“We need [more] government subsidy to hire lecturers,” he said, adding that if the government earmarked more funds for universities, Thai institutes would have a greater chance of climbing in the rankings. 

Sakarindr believes more funding for research, for example, would lead to higher rankings for universities and higher productivity for the country. 

From 2010 to 2012, the government only allocated Bt3.3 billion to be divided among nine research universities, including KMUTT. 

Sakarindr said half of KMUTT research budget now comes from the private sector.

Meanwhile, Japan’s University of Tokyo is maintaining its status as Asia’s No 1 and has moved four places to become the 23rd-best in the world. The National University of Singapore is holding on to its second place in the region and has moved from 29th to 26th, overtaking Australia’s University of Melbourne. 

South Korea’s Seoul National University has made it to the top 50 for the first time, taking the 44th place, followed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (up from 68 to 56).

The California Institute of Technology has retained its place at the top for the third consecutive year, with Harvard University regaining second place (up from No 4) in a tie with England’s University of Oxford. 

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-2014 are the only global university performance tables to judge world-class universities across their core missions.

Visit www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings for the entire list.