THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas achieved its highest spot since its first entry in the SCImago Institutions Rankings in 2020, placing fifth among 15 ranked Philippine research centers in the latest edition of the assessment.
UST ranked 4,897th out of 9,054 research institutions globally in the 2024 SCImago Institutions Rankings, a ranking system of higher education institutions, government agencies, hospitals, private companies and non-profit organizations. The institutions were assessed based on their research performance (50%), innovation outputs (30%) and societal impact (20%).
The International Rice Research Institute and the University of the Philippines Diliman remained the first (2,971st) and second (3,151st) research centers in the country, respectively. Both institutions have consistently secured the two highest ranks nationally since the SCImago Institutions Rankings’ establishment in 2009.
The Department of Science and Technology, the country’s executive government agency for innovative projects, also stayed on the third spot (3,344th) while De La Salle University climbed to fourth (4,459th) after placing fifth previously.
Among 19 subject areas covered by the ranking body, UST attained placements in only nine categories.
The University bagged first place in the Philippines in the following areas: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Chemistry; and Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics.
Meanwhile, UST ranked second in Agricultural and Biological Sciences and Environmental Science. It also secured placements in Arts and Humanities (fourth), Psychology (fourth), Medicine (fifth) and Social Sciences (seventh).
SCImago computes an institution’s “presence” in a subject category if it “exceeds a minimum output threshold equivalent to twice the percentage this area represents in the world.”
The rankings evaluated 197 journals where the UST researchers’ works were published.
UST ranked eighth out of 12 Philippine institutions (6,432nd out of 7,026 worldwide) during its debut in the SCImago rankings in 2020.
However, its performance dwindled in the following years: 10th out of 13 centers in the country (7,103rd out of 7,533) in 2021; eighth out of 14 (7,295th out of 8,084) in 2022 and 12th out of 13 (8,132nd out of 8,433) in 2023.
Other Philippine research centers that made it to the latest rankings were the University of the Philippines Los Baños (5,866th), Ateneo de Manila University (6,645th), Mapua University (7,016th), Philippine General Hospital (7,065th), University of the Philippines Manila (7,190th), University of San Carlos (7,291st), University of the Philippines Visayas (7,818th), Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (7,983rd), Mindanao State University – Marawi (8,167th) and National University (8,896th).
The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the globally highest-ranked institution, followed by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France landed on the third spot while Harvard University and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
SCImago Lab is a Spanish consulting firm that analyzes scientometrics, scientific publications and web visibility. Run by the SCImago Research Group, the group aims to generate indicators and methodologies for assessing the productivity of research centers worldwide. F
