Singaporeans have one more thing to be proud of these days. Last week, it was revealed that the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) were ranked number 1 and 3 respectively among Asia’s 500 best universities.
As if this were not enough reason to celebrate, the latest US News & World Report’s Best Global Universities Rankings shows that NTU has entered the list of top 50 best universities in the whole world for the very first time, coming in at 49th place.
NUS, which is ranked 38th best global university, went up five notches this year. NTU, which was ranked 55th last year, climbed six notches up, out of 1250 universities in 75 different nations.
There are 13 indicators measuring the academic research performance and their global and regional reputations of each university that determine rankings.
NUS and NTU received top marks for individual subjects, particularly in the fields of science and engineering.
Around the world, NTU ranked in the top five globally for the following subject areas: materials science (first place), chemistry (second place), computer science (second place) and engineering (fifth place), while NUS ranked second in engineering and fourth in computer science.
The president of NTU, Professor Subra Suresh, said: “This augurs well for the NTU smart campus, which is a living testbed for advanced technologies and innovation that will benefit Singapore and the world.”
A spokesman for the university also said, “The rapid technological advances in the Digital Age are changing the nature of work – many jobs will become obsolete, and new jobs will be created. This means that NUS will need to be even more strategic and adaptive, through pioneering innovative approaches to university education and lifelong learning to nurture future-ready and future-confident graduates.”
In a press release, NTU emphasized that the four subjects where it had gotten top marks are part of the important areas that are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.