UM students at the Hengqin campus
The University of Macau (UM) made it on the list of the world’s most international universities in 2016, ranking sixth among the top 200 universities across the globe.
The university is one of three from the Southeast Asia countries and regions that were included in this year’s top international university rankings. Six universities in Hong Kong and two in Singapore were among the top 200 institutions. The University of Hong Kong achieved third in the rankings.
The rankings, published yesterday by The Times Higher Education, a weekly magazine based in London, showed that a total of 15 universities in London are named in the rankings, revealing that London has more top international universities than the whole of USA, Canada and France combined. The UK has almost a third of entries in the top 200, 39 of which made the top 100.
The Telegraph Online claimed that in terms of the numbers of foreign staff and students, UK faces competition from countries including Switzerland, the US and Australia, the last of which has the second-highest number of entries. However, experts warned that the UK could lose its rankings as competitors in Europe become savvier in attracting candidates from different parts of the world.
The rankings are compiled through analysis of the proportion of the institutions’ international staff and international students at each university, also taking into account the number of research papers published with at least one co-author from another country.
“An institution’s global outlook is one of the key markers of a prestigious university. The top institutions hire staff from all over the world, attract students from a global market of top talent, and collaborate with leading departments wherever they happen to be based,” said Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
He added that the UK had fantastic assets and was one of the world’s most attractive destinations for international students. Mr Baty emphasized that countries like China, which traditionally send a large number of international students to the UK, were able to retain more students.
The most international institution is Qatar University – the first time that a Middle Eastern university has topped the list – beating the five- time rankings leader École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, which came fourth this year.
The University of Luxembourg came second and the University of Geneva rounded out the top five most global universities.
top 100 international universities
1. Qatar University
2. University of Luxembourg
3. University of Hong Kong
4. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
5. University of Geneva, Switzerland
6. University of Macau
7. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
8. University of St Gallen, Switzerland
9. National University of Singapore
10. Imperial College London, UK
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