THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas obtained a higher overall rank but stayed as the fourth best among eight Philippine schools in the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2026.
In the latest assessment, UST landed 834th worldwide with an overall score of 57.5, higher than its previous spot within the 1041-1060 bracket.
The QS Sustainability Rankings evaluates universities across three categories, namely, environmental impact (45%), social impact (45%) and governance (10%). The categories scored based on universities performance on nine lenses
“This structure allows QS to assess universities on everything from environmental projects on campus, through to diversity initiatives, institutional governance, and the impact of academic research across the UN’s 17 SDG,” QS said in its magazine.
This year, eight Philippine institutions made it to the assessment, three of them securing ranks for the first time.
Still the country’s leading school in terms of sustainability was the University of the Philippines, which fell to 371st from last year’s 333rd. It was followed by Ateneo de Manila University (455th from 503rd) and De La Salle University (538th from 911-920).
UST outperformed newly-ranked Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (1151-1200) and Mapúa University, which slipped to the 1251-1300 band from 1041-1060. Also behind UST were University of San Carlos (1401-1500) and Cebu Technological University (1501+), both of which debuted in this year’s edition.
The España-based university ranked the highest in the country for the governance category at 607th, surpassing Ateneo de Manila University (648th) and De La Salle University (673rd). In the social and environmental impact categories, UST placed 787th and 1075th worldwide, respectively.
With a 65.2 score on social impact, UST was able to rank 360th on knowledge exchange and obtain its highest score within the category on equality (82.5), placing at 607th. The University also ranked at 1004th, 1035th and 1090th for employability and opportunities, health and well-being and education impact, respectively.
Under the environmental impact category, the University was ranked 740th globally in environmental sustainability while gaining a 853rd standing for environmental education.
Seven of the universities, including UST, ranked 1251+ for environmental research, while the University of the Philippines ranked 1175th worldwide.
Lund University topped this year’s sustainability rankings, followed by the University of Toronto, University College of London, University of Edinburgh and the University of British Columbia.
In Asia, the National University of Singapore (8th) came first, trailed by the University of Hong Kong (11th), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (12th), Peking University (14th) and Tsinghua University (17th).
Almost 2,000 institutions were featured in this year’s edition, according to QS’ website, higher than the previous 1,743 universities ranked across 107 territories. F
