MENA top 30 snapshot released as THE MENA Universities Summit launches

Institutions from 11 countries feature in a top 30 that previews what a new ranking of universities in the Middle East and North Africa could look like

February 24, 2015

A third of the universities in the table, which was drawn up by Times Higher Education and measures research impact, are based in Egypt. However, the country has only one institution in the top 10: Beni-Suef University, which was ninth.

Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have three institutions in the top 30, which was released as THE holds its inaugural MENA Universities Summit in Qatar.

The event includes a consultation on proposals for a full THE ranking for the region, building on the flagship World University Rankings. This would combine the citation scores from Elsevier’s Scopus database, used for this snapshot, with a wider range of performance metrics.

The top five had been released last month, putting Texas A&M University at Qatar in first place ahead of the Lebanese American University. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz University was third, ahead of Qatar University and the American University of Beirut.

The rest of the top 10 includes two Saudi institutions: King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, and King Saud University, in seventh and eighth respectively.

Morocco’s Cadi Ayyad University was sixth, while Jordan’s Hashemite University was 10^th.

Phil Baty, editor of the THE World University Rankings, said the top 30 gave us “fascinating insight into the research strengths of the MENA region” but was “just a snapshot to stimulate wider discussions about the most appropriate metrics for ranking the region’s universities”.

“The THE World University Rankings use 13 separate performance indicators to judge institutions across the full range of activities – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook – and we would like to extend this tried and trusted formula to the MENA region,” he said.

“The question we are discussing here at the summit in Qatar is what is the appropriate range and balance of metrics to suit the specific missions of MENA institutions, and whether we can develop new indicators specifically for the region.”

The top 30 snapshot was calculated using the ratio of the citations received by an institution’s publication output between 2009 and 2013 and the total citations that would be expected based on the average of the subject field.

Qatar, Lebanon and Morocco each had two universities in the top 30, as did Jordan, Algeria and Tunisia.

To register your institution for the annual data collection round which will allow it to be included in the THE World University Rankings analyses, please contact: profilerankings@timeshighereducation.com