By Jennani Durai

SINGAPORE universities held a steady position in the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) survey by Jiao Tong University in Shanghai.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) ranked just outside the top 100, grouped with 51 other universities for the 101st to 151st spots.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was ranked outside the top 300, along with 99 other universities between the 303rd to 401st spots.

Both universities have held their rankings since the ARWU was first published in June 2003.

Taking the No. 1 spot for the seventh year in a row was Harvard University in the United States.

Also making the top 10 were Stanford University (2nd), University of California Berkeley (3rd), University of Cambridge (4th), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (5th), Princeton University (8th), and the University of Oxford (10th).

ARWU uses several objective indicators to rank universities, including the number of alumni and faculty who have won Nobel Prizes and the number of highly cited researchers.

Within the Asia-Pacific region, NUS placed in the 10th to 16th band, while NTU ranked in the 43rd to 67th band. The University of Tokyo was top in the region, with a global ranking of 20th.

Australian universities also scored well on the regional ranking, with the Australian National University ranking 3rd in the region, 59th internationally, and the University of Melbourne ranking 6th in the region and 75th internationally.

On its placing, NTU said the ARWU rankings tend to be 'more retrospective' in what is assessed, which means older universities are favoured. Agreeing, NUS president Professor Tan Chorh Chuan said a university's placing was 'based purely on research and gives a high weightage to Nobel Prizes and Fields medals'.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.