ข่าวเด่น

Research Quality score rises from 56.4 to 66.2, lifting the university from 996^th to 734^th in the world on the pillar.

Walailak University has the highest Research Quality score of any Thai university in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027. WU’s score rose from 56.4 to 66.2, moving the university from 996^th to 734^th in the world on this pillar and ahead of Chulalongkorn University (60.3) and Mahidol University (57.7), the two Thai universities ranked highest overall.

The result, released on 30 September 2026, helped lift Walailak's overall ranking into the 1001+ band, up from 1201+ last year. This year, a total of 2,297 universities worldwide participated in the university rankings. Out of the 24 research-intensive universities from Thailand, Walailak shares third place with Chiang Mai University, and King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. According to THE, Walailak is ranked first among universities in southern Thailand.

THE's Research Quality measures draw on publications from 2021 to 2025, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Siwarit Pongsakornrungsilp, Vice President for Research and Innovation, said the result reflects that five-year effort.

“It shows that over the past five years, we have developed our academic work. When five years of output are laid side by side, we are first in Research Quality and third overall in Thailand,” he said. 

Research Quality carries 30% of THE's overall score and measures citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence. Walailak improved on all four, according to THE DataPoint, led by research excellence (48.5 to 64.0) and research strength (48.4 to 61.7). Publications counted by THE rose 19%, from 2,976 to 3,542, and 1,909 of them (53.9%) had international co-authors. The share of papers in journals ranked in the top 10% by CiteScore, a Scopus measure of how often a journal's articles are cited, rose from 11.16% to 12.14%.

Dr. Siwarit credited the research strategy set by President Prof. Dr. Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, which prioritizes publication in Scopus Q1 and top-tier journals and has been translated into indicators for every unit. “We built a research ecosystem to support lecturers in both seeking funding and publishing their work,” he said.

That support includes individual grants of 50,000 to 100,000 baht for new lecturers, a pathway from Fundamental Fund grants for basic research to Strategic Fund grants, training, school research units and monthly progress meetings. Publication expectations are written into contracts and annual evaluations, alongside rewards such as payments for published papers and the university’s Princess Chulabhorn Gold Research Award.

Dr. Siwarit said international collaboration is essential and is tracked at university, unit and individual levels. “Knowledge is intangible. If we confine it to ourselves, few people will get to know us, no one will build on it, and our own growth in knowledge will be narrow,” he said. “With international collaborators, our knowledge is taken up and extended more widely, and we can bring that knowledge back to teach our students or develop new work.” He added that, by THE's criteria, a higher score and ranking give greater assurance that students will learn up-to-date knowledge and new ways to develop it.

Walailak University has attracted more than 50,000 applicants a year since the 2024 academic year. In the 2026 academic year, it admitted a record 4,152 new students, whose average high school GPA (GPAX) of 3.46 is the highest since the university was founded in 1992.

Research output has kept pace well. Between October 2025 and September 2026, 907 of Walailak's 1,140 published articles (79.56%) appeared in Q1 journals, the top quarter in their fields; 1,035 (90.79%) in Q1 or Q2 journals; and 831 (72.89%) involved international collaboration.

Looking ahead, Dr. Siwarit said the university will not slow down. “When we stop, the world does not stop turning. Stopping means going backwards,” he said. From 2027, research at WU will focus more on “nature positive”: restoring nature to rebuild healthy ecosystems, support people's health and wellbeing, and revive local societies and economies, with AI and green technology as the foundation.

At a glance: THE World University Rankings

Walailak University, located in Nakhon Si Thammarat, southern Thailand, is recognized by Thailand’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) as one of 20 Global and Frontier Research Universities, the first tier. It has been named by Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) as an Outstanding Research Organization since 2025. In 2023, it also received an MHESI award for internationally high-caliber research.