NUS ranked 27th in the world by academics

THE National University of Singapore (NUS) has been ranked the 27th best in the world and third best in Asia by academics asked to pick the top universities in their disciplines.

A total of 13,388 experienced academics in 131 countries were asked to rate universities around the world according to how good they thought their research and teaching were.

The results, published yesterday by Britain's Times Higher Education magazine, reveal that US institutions were most highly regarded, taking seven of the top 10 places.

Harvard University was first, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in second place. In total, 45 US universities made it to the global top 100.

Two British universities, Cambridge and Oxford, made it to the top 10 and a dozen more were in the top 100.

Japan's Tokyo University was the only Asian university to make it to the top 10, followed by Kyoto University, at 18th.

All in, Asia had 15 universities in the top 100 table, including Nanyang Technological University (NTU) which was placed in the 91st to 100th band.

NUS president Professor Tan Chorh Chuan said: 'We are delighted to be placed among the best universities in the world by our peers. This latest ranking is a positive affirmation from the international academic community of the world-class quality of education and research being produced at our university.'

NTU's chief planning officer and registrar Chan Kwong Lok said: 'NTU is pleased that despite our short history, globally we stand alongside universities that have centuries worth of research.'

In recent years there has been a proliferation of university league tables, which have become important marketing tools for attracting the best students and academics. But this latest ranking is different in that it measures how universities are regarded, rather than how they actually performed.

Each institution's rank was based on the number of times it was nominated as 'the best' in its field. There were two categories: research and teaching. Research was given twice as much weight as teaching when it came to working out the final score.