By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: Two universities in Qatar has scored high in a preview of new ranking of universities in the Middle East and North Africa, to be announced next year.
Texas A&M University at Qatar stood first and Qatar University came fourth in a pilot ranking of 30 universities released by Times Higher Education (THE) at their inaugural Mena summit held here yesterday. A comprehensive ranking will be released in February 2016.
Lebanese American University is placed second, while King Abdulaziz University is in the third position according to THE ranking which measures research impact mainly.
Phil Baty, Editor-in-Large of the THE World University Rankings, said, “The top 30 ranking is fascinating insight into the research strengths of the MENA region... (but) just a snapshot to stimulate wider discussions about the most appropriate metrics for ranking the region’s universities.”
“We will release a comprehensive MENA university ranking in February, at the next THE MENA summit we are hosting at the University of United Arab Emirates,” he told this daily on the sidelines of THE MENA Universities Summit.
THE university world rankings has 13 performance indicators with a range of university activities, mainly research, together with teaching and learning environment, international outlook and mission.
“We have a very wide range of metrics, we would like to extend this internationally tried and trusted formula to the Mena region.
“But we just like to recalibrate and modify the system with the priorities of universities in this region,” said Baty.
However gathering information from the universities in the region is seen as a big challenge in reaching a comprehensive ranking system.
“I think the biggest issue is information, we have wide range of public information from publications, we gather reputational data, but what we really want to do is encourage the universities to share more institutional data,” said Baty.
THE - MENA Universities Summit, the first such in the region and in Qatar, was organized by Qatar University (QU) and THE magazine.
The event includes a consultation on proposals for a full THE ranking for the region, building on the flagship World University Rankings.
“We see the summit is part of the process to really encourage institutions to share information.
“We are really involved in working in partnership with all the universities and explain them the benefits (or ranking) and encourage them to share information,” said Baty.
The Peninsula
