This year Universitas Gadjah Mada has made a significant jump to improve the matters that support recognition of UGM academic reputation and impact.
After its ranking at 391 according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS-WUR) ranking in the past year, in the QS-WUR 2020 released this month, UGM has ranked 320 among best world universities.
“The improvements done by UGM proved to be able to level up its position by 71 places from the previous year,” said Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng., on Tuesday (18/6).
The ranking made UGM the first in Indonesia in terms of academic reputation. Panut said in the future UGM would continue to make improvements in academic system and process. He added that ranking outcomes by world ranking agencies were not the goal of UGM, but university ranks became one of the indicators to increase the world trust of UGM.
The Rector explained that the quality of academic works of UGM had to be improved to serve as a reference as well as making impacts on the world. According to the Rector, UGM academic community ought to produce more scientific artifacts that contribute to humanity.
“One of the indicators is that the works have to have high citations,” he said.
He said data managed based on SciVal (one of academic works analysis) showed that citation per lecturer increased from 1.4 in previous year to >1.5 this year.
Besides, increased trust is also seen with the higher proportion among international communities that conduct education, research, and community service along with UGM academic community, which include doing studies at UGM.
“Instead of sending Indonesian students to study abroad, it would be better if the government and higher learning institutions, including UGM, build a higher learning network that attracted the international attention, for academics, industry players, or students, to collaborate in the country and build academic environment equal with that abroad,” he said.
Furthermore, the Rector appreciated the support from the government, deans, lecturers, researchers, Board of Trustee, Academic Senate, Board of Professors and other stakeholders that had resulted in this achievement.
Head of UGM Quality Assurance Office, Prof. Dr. Indra Wijaya Kusuma, M.B.A., said the ranking was done through a survey among world academics, work provider, and other related groups. Indicators of the assessment include academic reputation, work provider reputation, student and lecturer ratio, number of international lecturers and students.
“Increased ranking is not something that you can make instantly, because the data that are used are obtained for the duration of five years. We have improved many things, hopefully the result will show,” he said.