Ateneo leads Philippines universities in 2023 Asian rankings

MANILA, Philippines — Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) was ranked 84th among the best universities in Asia, based on the latest Asia University Rankings 2023 released yesterday by the United Kingdom-based education magazine Times Higher Education (THE).

It was a sweet debut ranking for ADMU, as it was the only university in the Philippines that made it to the list’s top 100, a big leap from its “reporter” status in previous years.

A reporter status means that the university provided data for the evaluation process but did not meet “eligibility criteria” to make it into official rankings.

“We are honored to enter Times Higher Education’s Asia rankings for the first time, especially being ranked in the top 100. This feat is the

product of years of hard work of the entire community – from faculty and researchers, to staff, professionals and administrators, to our students,” Fr. Roberto Yap, ADMU president, said in a statement.

“This only encourages us to further work on our shared mission to engage with society to affect positive change in the world,” Yap said.

A total of 669 universities made it to the rankings this year, up from 616 in 2022.

The universities were from 33 countries, with Japan having the most ranked universities (117), followed by China (95), India (75), Iran (65) and Turkey (61).

Meanwhile, the University of the Philippines fell to the 201–250 bracket – a slip in the rankings for the third consecutive year from 129th place in 2022, 84th in 2021 and 65th in 2020.

De La Salle University also slipped in the rankings to the 501-600 bracket from the 401-500 bracket in 2022 and 2021.

Making its debut in the THE’s rankings was Mapua University, which landed in the 601+ bracket.

Six other universities in the Philippines currently have the “reporter” status: Cebu Technological University, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, University of Santo Tomas, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Tarlac Agricultural University and Visayas State University.

THE’s rankings uses the same 13 performance indicators as its World University Rankings, though the indicators “were calibrated to reflect the attributes of Asian institutions.”

The performance indicators were grouped into five categories: teaching (learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research influence); international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer).

The ADMU obtained an overall score of 47.4 while UP, DLSU and Mapua obtained 35.5-38.1, 19.3-22.9 and 13.0-19.2 overall scores, respectively.

Per performance indicator category, ADMU obtained the highest score in citations (97), followed by teaching (38.3), industry income (37.6), international outlook (31.8) and research (11.6).

China’s Tsinghua University was hailed as the top university in Asia for the fifth straight year with an overall score of 88.2, followed by Peking University also in China (87.8), National University of Singapore (87.2), University of Hong Kong (80.1), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (79.2), Chinese University of Hong Kong (76.1), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (75.3), University of Tokyo (75), Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, both in China (tied at 73.4) and Seoul National University in South Korea (73.2).Scholarships

In a related development, the Japanese government has pledged to spend some P127 million to fund a scholarship program that grants 20 young Filipino government employees the opportunity to earn their master’s degree in a Japanese university.

Japanese Ambassador Kazuhiro Koshikawa and Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo signed the Exchange of Notes (E/N) for The Project for Human Resource Development Scholarship by Japanese Grant Aid (JDS) yesterday.

The grant will fund the 22nd Batch of JDS Fellows from the Philippines, who will begin their master’s degree studies at premier universities in Japan in Academic Year 2024-2025.

The Japanese embassy said applications for the 20 slots for the JDS Program are yet to open but aspiring scholars are encouraged to visit the JDS Philippines webpage for future announcements and more information. https://jds-scholarship.org/country/philippines/index.html

The JDS Program forms part of Japan’s assistance to the human resource development initiatives of its recipient countries like the Philippines.

It aims to enhance the expertise of the JDS Fellows in their respective fields, contributing to their countries’ development.

Since 2002, Japan has supported a total of 439 JDS Fellows from the Philippines. — Michael Punongbayan