Three Saudi universities on global ranking list

Saudi Arabia has three representatives in the newly expanded World University Rankings published by the Times Higher Education.

Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz University, Dammam’s King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and Riyadh’s King Saud University feature on the list.

“Saudi Arabia is one of several countries to have made its debut in this year’s World University Rankings. This achievement is in part due to expanding the ranking to include 801 universities and 70 countries,” said Phil Baty, the editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

He said the newly expanded Times Higher Education World University Rankings is great news for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“MENA universities need to continue to progress up the rankings for the region to compete effectively in the 21st century knowledge economy.”

The World University Rankings are partly based on publication and citation data from Elsevier’s Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, and include analytics from SciVal, Elsevier’s tool to calculate comparative research metrics.

The ranking features universities in 70 countries, with 29 new countries included this year. Countries entering this year include Indonesia, Malaysia, Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Latvia, Gulf countries of Oman, Qatar and the Ukraine.

Baty said: “This year’s expanded list is testament to just how competitive global higher education has become — our top 800 universities come from 70 different countries, and the traditional dominance of the US is eroding.

Make no mistake — many countries aspire to have world class universities competing with the very best in the world, and no one at the top can afford to rest on their laurels. You have to run very fast just to stand still and there are many rising stars from a wide range of nations seeking to gain the upper hand in the 21st century knowledge economy.”

Rank 2015-16 — Institution

251-600 — King Abdulaziz University

501-600 — King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

501-600 — King Saud University

This article first appeared in the Saudi Gazette on Sept. 30.