THE UNIVERSITY of the Philippines and the De La Salle University dropped in the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

UP fell to the 601-800 bracket from the 401-500 bracket in its 2021 ranking, while DLSU slid to the 1200+ bracket — lower than its 1000+ bracket in the previous year.

The two institutions were the only Philippine schools listed in the World University Ranking 2022.

To make the list, universities are assessed based on performance indicators across four areas such as teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

The latest edition looked at a record number of 1,662 universities from 99 countries and regions, which is 136 more universities than the 1,526 universities in the 2021 rankings.

Universities that have published medical sciences research relating to Covid19 saw a significant boost in their citation impact, according to the United Kingdom-based magazine.

David Watkins, head of data science at THE, said the citations’ effect was “to be expected given that Covid19 has had such an impact worldwide.”

“Research into the disease, and especially work on vaccines, was heavily funded and prioritized, and some papers have attracted more than 20,000 citations within a year of publication,” Watkins said.

“Because THE uses a five-year window for publications, we believe that this effect will remain noticeable in the rankings for some time, and it is likely that other Covid-related effects, such as reputational impact (both positive and negative) and income, will also become visible,” he added.

The top 10 universities in the world for 2022 are:

1. University of Oxford (UK)
2. California Institute of Technology (US)
3. Harvard University (US)
4. Stanford University (US)
5. University of Cambridge (UK)
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
7. Princeton University (US)
8. University of California, Berkley (US)
9. Yale University (US)
10. University of Chicago (US)