Chulalongkorn University (CU) is aiming to rank among the world's top 80 universities next year in terms of academic reputation after it broke into the top 100 for the first time this year.
The oldest university in Thailand was listed in 96th place among the world's top 100 universities for academic reputation released by UK-based education and career consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) on Wednesday, improving by 12 places from last year.
Acting CU rector Bundit Eua-arporn said with over 1,600 universities around the world being ranked, it was an achievement to be in the top 100 in the category.
"We were in 108th place last year, so this is a big change. Our ranking this year is the highest rank ever received by a university in Thailand," he said.
"We did it, but we won't stop. We'll keep working hard. I think we have a chance to reach 80th next year," he said.
Mr Bundit said CU has put a lot of effort into improving its academic research and recruiting outstanding researchers over the past few years after it set a target to be the first Thai university to be listed in the world's top 100 universities.
QS ranked 1,000 universities from 80 different locations and surveyed 102,662 academics and 51,649 employers whose insights and opinions informed the reputational indicators.
The universities were rated according to six components: academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), faculty-student ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), international faculty ratio (5%) and international student ratio (5%).
"This year, we did well in term of academic reputation and employer reputation, but we still need to do better in other areas," Mr Bundit said.
CU was ranked 208th globally and 46th in Asia when all six components were combined together in the overall rankings.
"We plan to form more partnerships with world-leading universities to upgrade ourselves and plug gaps in fields where we still lack resources and personnel. I believe this will help us improve the international student intake," he said.
