UGM among world's top 100 colleges

UGM among world's top 100 colleges

YOGYAKARTA: Gadjah Mada University (UGM) was among the world's top 100 universities in the field of arts and humanities studies according to a survey conducted by the UK's The Times daily, Rector Sofian Effendi announced here on Wednesday.

"The result of the survey was published in the Oct. 21 edition of The Times, but I was informed about it only two days ahead of Idul Fitri," Sofian said, referring to the Islamic celebration marking the end of Ramadhan.

Sofian said the survey was conducted in 2,375 universities around the world using six criteria: reviews from scientists, and from employers, the percentage of international lecturers and students, the student-lecturer ratio and the citation index of the lecturers.

"Together with 16 others, UGM was ranked 56th among the world's top 100 arts and humanities universities," Sofian said.

Among the 16 universities ranked 56th include RMIT (Australia), Hiroshima (Japan), Amsterdam (Netherlands), National University of Singapore, St. Andrews (UK), and New York (U.S.).

The top three positions were awarded to Harvard University (U.S.), Oxford and Cambridge (both UK).

The invitation for UGM to be included in the survey, according to Sofian, came in mid-2005. It offered five different categories: the world's top 100 science, technology, biomedicines, social sciences, and arts and humanities universities.

"We feel very honored to be ranked thus. We are proud and confident to be included among the world's top universities," Sofian said.

"We expect also to be among the world's top 100 social sciences and biomedicines universities next year. We feel confident about that.

"That way we can be listed among the world's top 200 universities overall," he added. -- JP