Six Pakistani universities ranked among the world’s top 800 institutes on the 13th edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.
National University of Science and Technology (Nust) continues to be the country’s highest-ranked institute, remaining in the 501-550 band.
Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) and Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) are ranked second and third respectively.
The remaining three Pakistani institutes which are among the world’s top 800 institutes are the University of Karachi, the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore and the University of Lahore.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) remains world’s best university for the fifth consecutive year.
Ben Sowter, Head of Research at the QS Intelligence Unit, suggests chronically low funding in Pakistan for both research and development, and the higher education sector, as key factors in determining performance in these metrics.
“This year’s rankings imply that levels of investment are determining who progresses and who regresses. Institutions in countries that provide high levels of targeted funding, whether from endowments or from the public purse, are rising. On the other hand, Western European nations making or proposing cuts to public research spending are losing ground to their US and Asian counterparts,” he said.
Elsewhere in the world, Stanford University displaces the University of Cambridge in the top three. This means that US institutions hold all top three places for the first time since the inaugural rankings of 2004. Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan enjoy noteworthy improvements, while the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy lose ground.
