Three Malaysian universities made it into Times Higher Education (THE) BRICS and Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017's top 100 list – Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). This assessment, which is the most competitive to date, looks into 300 institutions from 50 developing countries, as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

GIF: Giphy
The other four institutions that made it to the top 300 are Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Universiti Teknologi Mara. This makes a total of seven Malaysian universities that made it into this prestigious list compared to four from last year.

GIF: Giphy
According to THE World University Rankings editor Phil Baty, only the best institutions are ranked in the THE 2017 BRICS and Emerging Economies Rankings. Thirteen performance indicators were used to rank the universities, which include high standards in teaching, research, international outlook and knowledge transfer, competing with other leading research universities across emerging economies.

Unfortunately, Universiti Malaya, which has long been considered the nation’s leading institution in higher education, was not included. UPM is now taking the lead after climbing 14 places for their improved performance in research environment, research influence and attraction of foreign talent.

Image: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
In recent years, Malaysia has invested a lot in higher education and marketed the country as a knowledge economy and innovation hub. Local public universities have experienced budget slashes of up to 15% this year due to the economy downturn, so they will have to progress faster in order to remain in this ranking for the next few years.