The University of Jordan (UJ) has been ranked top university in Jordan, and in the top 600 – 601 universities in the newly released 2020 QS World University Rankings.
QS Rankings are based on academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty, student-to-faculty ratio, proportion of international faculty, and proportion of international students.
UJ ranked among the top 500 worldwide in terms of academic reputation, employer reputation, and proportion of international students.
It ranked in the 359th place worldwide in terms of academic reputation -advancing 45 positions from last year - and moved up 63 positions to the 283th place in terms of employer reputation. In terms of the proportion of international students, UJ ranked 386 worldwide.
In terms of the student-to-faculty ratio and the citations per faculty criteria UJ ranked 601+, a result that could have been better if not for the financial situation of the University, the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Center stated.
Moreover, according to the Center's statement, the ranking obtains its data from Scopus, a database that mainly includes journals that publish in English and in scientific and medical disciplines mostly, and therefore the ranking does not take into consideration all of the Arabic scholarly output of the University or publications in the humanities.
This year, four Jordanian universities are in the list; UJ, followed by the Jordan University of Science and Technology (651-700), German Jordanian University, and Princess Sumaya University for Technology (801-1000).
UJ President Prof. Abdul Karim Al-Qudah commended the progress, confirming UJ's keenness to continue to improve its educational plans, enhance use of technology, and increase scientific research output.
Al-Qudah said that in recognition of the importance of university rankings and in order to progress in this classification to the top 500 list, UJ has recently adopted many decisions and procedures to encourage research and publication in international academic journals.
He revealed that fundamental amendments were made to the academic promotion regulations, journal regulations, and regulations to encourage academic publication in high impact journals.
QS is an annual ranking of the top 1,000 universities in the world and is considered one of the top three higher education rankings in the world in terms of importance and impact, along with the rankings of Times Higher Education and the Shanghai Rankings.