KAIST was ranked 56th in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. This the highest KAIST has achieved in its entire history.

This year’s THE ranking at 56th place is an increase of twelve places from 68th in the 2012 THE rankings. Out of the Korean universities, Seoul National University achieved the highest rank of 44th, with POSTECH coming in after KAIST at 60th. Yonsei University came next at 190th, making for a total of four Korean universities ranked in the top 200 worldwide. California Institute of Technology was ranked first with Harvard University and Oxford University ranked jointly at second. Fourth place went to Stanford University with Massachusetts Institute of Technology following at fifth.

THE is a weekly magazine that reports on news and issues related to higher education, and is an affiliate of The Times based in the UK. THE World University Rankings is determined using 13 calibrated performance indicators to provide a balanced comparison. Each indicator is grouped into one of five categories: the quality of the learning environment, including the number of students per faculty member (30%); research volume, income, and reputation (30%); research influence based on citations (30%); industry income (2.5%); and international outlook (7.5%). KAIST showed significant growth in both research and international outlook over the previous year leading to its increase in rank.

In addition, KAIST ranked 60th in this year’s QS World University Rankings, also a historical high, and has consistently ranked first in the JoonAng Daily’s university rankings over the past five years.

President Sung Mo Kang remarked, “KAIST has taken one more step towards becoming a world class university thanks to the dedication and passion of KAIST’s professors and students,” and expressed his intent to “strengthen support for education and research so that KAIST may be ranked among the top ten worldwide.”