The National University of Singapore (NUS) has risen four places to emerge 21st in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2022. This is the best showing by NUS, and Singapore, since the rankings started in 2010. The University also retains its position as the third best university in Asia.

The University of Oxford took pole position, while the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University shared second place in the rankings.

The THE World University Rankings 2022 includes a record 1,662 universities across 99 countries and regions this year, as well as an analysis of 108 million citations to 14.4 million research publications, and a survey of over 22,000 academics. Universities are assessed on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

An NUS spokesperson said, “We are pleased that NUS continues to be recognised among the leading universities in the world and in Asia. It testifies to the talent and stellar contributions by our NUS community. The pandemic has hastened digitisation with a clarion call for universities to transform and innovate to better meet the needs of societies worldwide. We remain committed to creating impact in the communities we care for and serve – nurturing our students to succeed in the future economy, and to drive innovative solutions to local and global challenges, as evidenced in our research on vaccines and even contact-tracing to help safeguard communities during the pandemic.”

Our NUS graduates have been making their mark in both the private and public sectors, and emerging also as leaders of society and industry. While in university, our students have also been actively giving back to society, having embarked on over 200 local and 150 overseas community projects in the last five years.

In the area of research and innovation, the University is also taking the lead in developing Singapore’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine. It is also encouraging the growth of entrepreneurship by producing 125 spin-off companies between 2016 and 2020 – a threefold increase from the previous five years.

These were revealed in an inaugural Impact Report, which highlighted NUS’ wide-ranging contributions over the past five years, from 2016 to 2020, in shaping talent, solutions and society for the future.

Click here to view the full THE WUR 2022 rankings.

This story first appeared on NUSnews on 2 September 2021.