Local institutions up in QS World University Rankings

The University of Macau (UM) and the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) have improved their rankings in this year’s QS World University Rankings.

The UM placed 245th overall, with an overall score of 41.1 points, advancing nine positions when compared with last year’s rankings (254th).

Since its first inclusion in 2014, the UM has consistently improved its ranking. The only year it did not improve was in 2017, when it mirrored its previous 2016 score.

The UM also achieved a classification of five stars on the QS Stars rating, which evaluates the institutions by categories, such as facilities, graduate employability, social responsibility, and inclusiveness.

UM got a five-star rating for the categories: Overall, Teaching, Employability, Research, Global Engagement, Facilities, Innovation & Knowledge Transfer, and Specialist Criteria: Hospitality & Leisure Management. It scored a four-star rating for Inclusiveness.

Meanwhile, the MUST placed 464th in the same rankings with an overall score of 25.9 points. First appearing in the 2021 list, it has also been consistently improving its score.

This year alone, the MUST jumped 41 places from its previous 505th position overall.

The ranking for 2025 continues to be led by the US’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with 100 points, followed by the UK’s Imperial College London, with 98.5 points, and the UK’s University of Oxford, with 96.9 points.

Also of note is the significant drop in score by one of the traditional Top 3 universities, the UK’s University of Cambridge. Cambridge has fallen to 5th, after placing for the last two years in second.

Currently in second overall, the Imperial College London has leaped from 6th.

The top-achieving Asian universities continue to be led by the National University of Singapore (8th), followed by Peking University (14th), and another Singaporean university, the Nanyang Technological University (15th).

Among the universities in neighboring regions, the best-ranked institution is the University of Hong Kong (17th).

The 20th QS World University Rankings features 1,500 institutions from across 104 locations. It is the only ranking of its kind that emphasizes employability and sustainability in its metrics.

For this year, the rank introduced some enhancements to its methodology, including three new metrics: Sustainability, Employment Outcomes, and International Research Network.

The rankings are drawn from the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers, as well as the expert opinions of more than 240,000 academics and employers.