The 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities annouced
M.U.S.T. In The Top 20 for the 1st Time
The 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) was officially released by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy on November 28th. Macau University of Science and Technology(M.U.S.T.) rose from last year’s 21st to 20th, and has thus made it into the top 20 in Greater China for the first time. The new height of the University in the Ranking also marks the first time when a university in Macao made it into the Top 20 of the Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China since its launch in 2011.
From 2016 onward, the top three places of the Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China have had no changes, and have long been occupied by Tsinghua University (Beijing), Peking University and National Tsing Hua University (Hsinchu). However, change has happened to the top three places in the 2019 Ranking; while Tsinghua University (Beijing) remains to occupy the 1st place in the Greater China and Peking University the 2nd, the Chinese University of Hong Kong has climbed to the 3rd place, followed by Zhejiang University at the 4th and the University of Hong Kong at the 5th. The other top-ranking universities among the top 10 are accordingly the University of Science and Technology of China (6th), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (7th), Fudan University (8th), National Tsing Hua University (Hsinchu) (9th) and National Taiwan University (10th).
M.U.S.T. has been rising steadily in the Ranking, and this year it made it into the top 20 for the first time. Since its first time being enlisted in the Ranking in 2011, M.U.S.T. has been rising, to a varied extent, on a yearly basis, and has remained the highest-ranking university in Macao for five consecutive years.
M.U.S.T. was founded at more or less the same time of the Macao S.A.R, and has since been co-growing with the S.A.R. Since the returning to the motherland, the Government has adopted a development strategy “To prosper Macao through Education and Human Capacity Development”. By way of a series of measures, including establishing new universities, optimizing laws and regulations, increasing investment, and reinforcing management, the higher education sector in Macao has made substantial progress in its scale and standard. As of today, Macao has approximately 3000 faculty and research members, with over 35000 students enrolled in programs across bachelor, master and doctorate levels. Among all the local universities, M.U.S.T. accounts for approximately one third of the aforementioned total number of enrolled students. As the largest-scale comprehensive university in Macao, M.U.S.T. offers wide-ranging programs in 11 fields, including liberal arts, sciences, laws, management, business, medicine, pharmacy, tourism, art, communication and foreign languages, with authority to award degrees for 60 doctoral, master and bachelor degree programs. Since it was founded in March of 2000, M.U.S.T. has been growing steadfast; it has been ranked among the top 100 universities at the Ranking of Top Universities in Greater China by Shanghai Rankings for nine consecutive years. The leap-frogging advancement and development of M.U.S.T. has become an important symbol marking the fast development of the higher education sector of Macao since it returned to the motherland; it also embodies the unique strengths of developing higher education in the context of the One Country, Two Systems principle.
The Opening Ceremony 2019/2020 of M.U.S.T.
In the world’s leading higher education system, it has been proved that high quality education is intimately linked to extraordinary research. In the same spirit, while implementing the policy “To Prosper Macao through Education”, the Macao S.A.R. Government has endeavored to develop unique prioritized research areas so as to stock talents, technologies and achievements for the transformation and adequate diversification of local economy. In 2004, the S.A.R. Government founded the Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) to provide grants for science and technology platforms, laboratory constructions and research projects. In 2011, with approval from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the S.A.R. Government assigned Macau University of Science and Technology to establish the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, and a second state key laboratory in 2018, namely, the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences. The establishment of the state key laboratories has enabled the University to own state-level science and research platforms, providing safeguards of policies and conditions for the University to “have a nest to attract the phoenix”, as well as great momentums for the fast development of innovative science and technology in Macao. What’s more, the Ministry of Education of China has approved M.U.S.T. to establish key partner research bases and joint laboratories in media research, intellectual property rights, ocean development, and cancer research in Chinese medicine. Now, such research institutes have formulated exponential academic strengths in their respective research areas and the papers, patents and achievements they’ve yielded met international standards, and the numbers rising on a yearly basis impact at home and abroad.
The State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine of M.U.S.T.
The Super Computing Center of the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Laboratory of M.U.S.T.
In 2019, M.U.S.T. has made new breakthroughs in developing programs, and was approved to offer Bachelor in Medicine and Bachelor in Surgery. By integrating the resources of its former public health program, nursing program and food and nutrition sciences program, the University inaugurated Macao’s first medicine school. The newly established Faculty of Medicine, along with the University’s Faculty of Chinese Medicine, School of Pharmacy, State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine and the University Hospital, has formulated a complete medical education system. This has enabled the University to become the first university in Macao with capacity to generate medical professionals to the society, produce medical research outcomes, and offer high quality medical services.
Inaugural Opening Ceremony of MBBS program of Faculty of Medicine, M.U.S.T.
Looking ahead, M.U.S.T. will continue to uphold its motto “Dedication to practical studies, enhancement of knowledge, ability and quality”, seize in hand the two key elements for developing the University, “quality” and “innovation”, deepen and reinforce implementation of the policy of attaching equal importance to teaching and research, expedite internationalization, foster more patriotic talents who love Macao and China, create more science and technology outcomes, and contribute forces for the adequate diversification and sustainable development of local economy and for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
ARWU that aim to become world-leading, internationally renowned, and high-standard research universities, and admit students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The ranking adopts an index system which consists of four categories, namely cultivation of talents, scientific research, quality of faculty members and university resources, and 13 sub-indicators.
For details in relation to the ARWU, please visit the following website: http://www.zuihaodaxue.com/Greater_China_Ranking_Methodology_2018.html
