The 2022 QS World University Rankings have just been released. Malaysian universities see these datapoints as a yearly scorecard and a benchmarking exercise to assess their performance in comparison with institutions around the world.
Although some of Malaysia's research universities showed a slight dip in ranking this year, most universities are continuously improving scores on key metrics such as Citation per faculty, Academic Reputation and Employer Reputation.
They account for 70 per cent of the total weightage in QS ranking points. Notably, the universities' ranking is the result of years of effort in each metric. For example, Citation per faculty may take four to five years to accrue because it depends on citations that take time to accumulate after research is published.
Publications in top-tier journals are key for most of these ranking systems because they also influence other metrics. Institutions with high Citation per faculty have strong Academic Reputation metric scores. QS ranking calculates this metric by counting all citations of papers published by an institution in the last five years and dividing it by the number of faculty members. This conveys how productive a faculty is in an institution.
What brings citations? Generally, publication in a high-tier Web of Science journal (mostly Tier 1 or top 25 per cent of journals published in that category in the Journal Citations Report [JCR]) would have a greater chance of being cited as the presumption is that these papers go through a rigorous peer-review process.
When looking for good studies, other researchers tend to browse through papers in these top-tier journals. Studies have found that internationally collaborated papers are cited more than locally collaborated papers. Furthermore, papers with multiple authors tend to be cited more.
Research requires resources. Hence, adequate research funding is crucial to sustaining research output. A long vision is vital as research generally grows around leaders who act as hubs that sustain the research community as research networks grow around them. Publication of quality research papers in high-impact journals emerges as a by-product of this research ecosystem.
To take Universiti Malaya as a case: the university received funding of about RM590 million for high-impact research (HIR) between 2011 and 2016. The programme had several targets, foremost was a certain number of papers in Tier 1 (JCR) journals and to ensure that UM placed within the top 100 in world ranking by 2016 (UM HIR Final report, 2016). The focus was on fundamental research that would create new knowledge.
These targets were met and, to a good extent, contributed greatly to its Tier 1 (JCR) publication count in a very short period. UM broke into the top 100 of QS world ranking in 2018. The HIR experiment made one thing clear — funding brings results. Furthermore, HIR fostered a dynamic research culture at the university that continues till today.
Any university that stays with the same metric points in the QS world ranking and does not improve over the previous year risks going backwards in its ranking. A quick calculation reveals that universities in the top 100 of QS world ranking are constantly improving; however, the acceleration of points determines whether they improve their ranking in the forthcoming year.
Put simply, all universities are running but it is the question of which university is running faster than the others. In the top 100, this competition is tougher.
Today, university ranking is no longer a question of being in an "elite group". It also has to do with institutional survival. Universities' biggest customers are their students and for admission, prospective students look for institutions with strong reputations so that they will be better positioned in the job market post-graduation. Employers also look for such candidates.
It helps in filtering good students — the notion is that if candidates graduate from a recognised institution, they will also perform well on the job.
Therefore, such independent university ranking systems indirectly help students and employers in their decision-making. Universities also consider these rankings for hiring academicians and PhD examiners. In short, these rankings matter, more than ever before.
One must bear in mind, however, that the pursuit of publication and ranking must be complemented with quality teaching, active learning, and new and innovative teaching tools for a better overall learning experience and to keep curriculum current with industry demands.
The writer is associate professor, Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times