Chulalongkorn University (CU), Thailand’s oldest university, already tops all other Thai universities in major global and regional rankings, but it isn’t content and is aiming even higher. In a move to improve its international standing, a team of Thai academics, led by Vice President for Academic Affairs Prof. Dr. Parichart Sthapitanonda, recently embarked on a study tour to Malaysia.
The university’s goal was to learn from three premier Malaysian universities about their rapid rise in international university ranking tables.
According to the QS World University Rankings, Chulalongkorn University, also informally referred to as Chula, holds the top rank in Thailand across 34 disciplines and is ranked 229th globally. Between 2012 and 2025, CU’s rankings fluctuated between 201 and 271. The University of Malaya, however, was ranked 156th in 2012 but rose to 60th in 2025.
Similarly, Malaysia’s Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), the second university the CU group visited, was ranked 360th in 2012 but rose to 148th in 2025. (The QS World University Rankings, published by Quacquarelli Symonds, is a widely recognised annual publication.
The rankings are based on a set of performance indicators including research, teaching, employability, and internationalisation. In 2025, the Top 10 institutions are: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Imperial College London, University of Oxford, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Stanford University, ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore (NUS), University College London (UCL), and California Institute of Technology (Caltech). QS also publishes rankings by specific subjects and regions such as Asia and Latin America.)
On July 23, at the University of Malaya (UM), the team was told how Malaysia’s top university prioritises attracting foreign students and encourages its academics to publish more papers in international journals, and have them cited. They also discussed their structured Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) compared to Chulalongkorn University’s.
More International Students: Top Foreign Universities Wage “War” to Attract the Best and Brightest
At the University of Malaya, Dr. Yahaya Ahmad, UM’s Associate Vice-Chancellor for Corporate Strategy, told the Thai academic group that about 20 to 25 percent of its 44,000 students are foreigners. He added that this is important for both the university’s ranking and its “branding.”
Ahmad also explained that the university’s reputation as an employer, along with special government support, was crucial for raising its global rankings. He noted that 70 percent of UM’s income comes from the state, while for Chula, it’s between 30–35 percent from the state, 25 percent from tuition fees, and 40 percent from property-related income. He also mentioned the careful selection of 400 people—half academics, half students—for peer review. The university’s plan is to break into the Top 50 next year, a remark that drew enthusiastic admiration from the Thai side.
Another key factor is internationalisation, which the Chulalongkorn University team admits it needs to improve. However, they face difficulties because many of its basic courses and degrees are in the Thai language, as Thai is the Kingdom’s national language.
According to Pokai Sriratanobhas, Assistant to the Chulalongkorn University President for Human Resources Management, 8.5 percent, or 3,200, of Chulalongkorn University students are foreigners.
That’s not even half of UM’s percentage. UM also told the Thai delegates that they are not just trying to increase the number of foreign students, but also the number of nationalities represented. This is because the majority of their foreign students are from China, and some rankings take into consideration not just the number of foreign students but also their diversity.
Both sides also acknowledged that more student exchanges between the two universities could and should take place, as Chulalongkorn University currently has only 52 students from Malaysia.
After the meeting, Prof. Dr. Parichart told Khaosod English that top foreign universities are waging a “war” to attract the best and brightest students. She also noted that it’s a challenge to recruit qualified foreign lecturers and researchers. Some who migrate to Chulalongkorn University (CU) are either retired or have a Thai spouse. Another challenge is making the work permit process more convenient. For students, the CU team added that branding and repatriation are very important and tied to the international ranking of universities.
KPI
Returning to the meeting at UM in Kuala Lumpur, another key issue raised by UM was their KPI, or Key Performance Indicator, which is used to assess and evaluate the performance of their academics and researchers. This includes the number of papers published, as well as citations, in international academic journals.
The Chula Brand
Assoc. Prof. Ake Pattaratankun teaches marketing at Chulalongkorn, but for the past two years, he has also been working as a branding advisor to the university’s president. This is a relatively new position, and Ake said CU is probably the only Thai university with someone holding such a job title.
“In QS Rankings, 60 percent [of our score comes from] academic reputation,” he told UM academics during the meeting. Ake also mentioned that according to Times Higher Education’s (THE) Impact Rankings in 2025, Chulalongkorn University is ranked 44th globally.
“There are many kinds of mirrors [to assess universities]. When it comes to internationalisation, Chulalongkorn may not be very good,” he admitted.
One thing Chulalongkorn is very good at, however, is attracting the attention of international media. They are so good that even the UM team who received them in Kuala Lumpur wants to learn from Chulalongkorn University.
Dogs & Media Fellowship
Six labrador retrievers, and a media fellowship, are among Chulalongkorn University’s hidden arsenals for improving the institution’s rankings and reputation, at international level. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the university successfully trained six dogs to sniff out COVID-19, and several international media organisations reported on it.
What’s more, over the past two years, the university has set up a media fellowship programme that allows up to four foreign journalists to spend a term, or up to six months, at the university. During this time, they can sit in on several classes, report on aspects of the university’s research, and interview top Chula academics on Thailand and more.
“This one we want to learn from you… You seem to have done it successfully,” a member of the UM team remarked to the Chula team during the meeting, referring to Chulalongkorn University’s successful international media coverage.
In Putrajaya, the administrative centre of Malaysia, which is a little over half an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur, the Chula team arrived at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia’s best agricultural university. The team was told that UPM takes pride in being the best green campus for 12 consecutive years. They also host 7,000 foreign students from 80 countries and collaborate with leading international institutions like Pantheon-Sorbonne University (University of Paris 2).
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ake told his Malaysian counterparts that Chula is “very new” in the field of agriculture, with its School of Agricultural Innovation being just 10 years old, and he expressed a desire to collaborate and learn from UPM. Ake’s colleague, Asst. Prof. Dr. Jessada Salathong, from the Faculty of Communication Arts, suggested to UPM that the two universities should exchange lecturers and staff members so the two institutions can learn from one another.
Upon learning that the team from Chulalongkorn University had already visited the University of Malaya, one of the hosts at UPM said, “We might offer you more,” adding that their university already has a collaborative relationship with Thailand’s Kasetsart University, a leading public university in Bangkok known for its strength in agriculture and more. Ake added that since there are only around 50 Malaysian students at Chula, this is an area that can be improved. This led both sides to come up with a scheme for exchanging students between CU and UPM.
As for UPM’s rapid rise in world university rankings, they said they “re-looked” at what is counted by QS, but without making it the main focus. Instead, they tried to internalise good practices to make them feel natural.
What More Can Chula Do?
Upon talking to different members of the Chulalongkorn University team, some key issues were raised for improvement.
Asst. Prof. Sornate Areesophonpichet, from the Faculty of Education, said Thailand’s natural strengths are in food, agriculture, tourism, and healthcare—and these are areas that Chula can respond to more effectively. She added that the government is in the process of setting up a Higher Education Fund, probably to be established by 2026 or 2027, which would be a boost to Chulalongkorn University.
Additionally, Chulalongkorn University doesn’t really run its own hospital, and what is known as Chulalongkorn Hospital is administered by the Thai Red Cross Society. Not having its own hospital also affects its international ranking.
Another issue was how the KPI index should be used. Parichart was of the opinion that Chula academics should not be pressured to have KPI reviews twice a year like UM and that an annual KPI review should suffice. This would afford Chula staff a good working quality and not make them too stressed, as she learned from a UM source that some UM faculty members left the university after feeling too pressured.
At Chulalongkorn University, academic staff are required to publish three academic papers within five years, while at the University of Malaya, they changed it last year to two papers per annum, said Parichart.
“For us, one can still stay if he or she didn’t manage three papers within five years,” said Parichart. “For them, it’s like they are being constantly whipped.”
“Our main goal of the visit [which also included a third university, UCSI University, but the Thai press were asked by UCSI not to attend the meeting] was not primarily about [improving Chulalongkorn University’s] ranking but to strengthen ties as we share many things in common,” she told the two Thai reporters who joined the group during the debriefing. Parichart acknowledged, however, that the meteoric rise of these top Malaysian Universities had attracted Chulalongkorn University’s curiosity.
Meanwhile, Pokai added that Chulalongkorn University has to move away from its proud legacy of being Thailand’s oldest university, which has attracted top Thai students over the centuries, and not be complacent. The university was founded 108 years ago.
Strategic Alliances and Future-Focused Academic Collaboration
Although Chulalongkorn is also exploring collaborations with top Western institutions including Oxford and MIT, the trip to Malaysia resulted in an agreement in principle to collaborate with top Malaysian universities in the following areas: research collaboration and matching grants (a $100,000 fund split between CU and UM was proposed by the Malaysian side) which would “spur an organic relationship.”
Also, high-level visits (for CU and UM by late 2025), collaborative academic programmes (to be discussed in more detail with UM and UPM), exchanging students, and holding joint seminars and symposiums were also discussed, as well as lter-term mutual learning.
With UPM, the two sides agreed to explore collaboration in the agricultural field, share joint research findings, and exchange academic personnel and students (student mobility).
Note: The writer and Khaosod English would like to thank Chulalongkorn University, and the team led by Vice President for Academic Affairs, Prof. Dr. Parichart Sthapitanonda, for the kind invitation to join the study trip to Malaysia.
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