Five Malaysian universities make the top 400 in the prestigious QS World University Ranking 2014 rankings, with all of them improving on their performance last year.

                    

Johor-based Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) makes the biggest leap - by over 60 notches - to clinch the 294th spot this year.

According to the QS latest survey, three Malaysian universities are in the top 300, led by the country’s oldest tertiary institution, Universiti Malaya (ranked at 151), followed by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (259) and UTM (294).

Two other Malaysian universities rounds up the top 400 - Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia, which are ranked 309 and 376 respectively.

They all climbed up the ladder from last years’ ranking - UM (167), UKM (269), UTM (355), USM (355) and UPM (411-420).

Malaysian universities, however, continue to trail far behind regional powerhouses such as National University of Singapore (24), University of Hong Kong (26), Australian National University (27), University of Tokyo (32) and Seoul University (35).

The universities are graded based on six indicators which among them include academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty student ratio, international faculty, research impact indicator, and citation per faculty.

USM is the only Malaysian university which has shown improvement in all six indicators.

Meanwhile, the International Islamic University (UIA) has remained stagnant with a ranking of between 501-550.

The world’s top 10 universities this year are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2. University of Cambridge

3. Imperial College London

4. Harvard University

5. University of Oxford

6. University College London

7. Stanford University

8. California Institute of Technology

9. Princeton University

10. Yale University

QS World University Rankings is an annual league table of the top universities in the world and is arguably the best-known and respected ranking of its kind.

It is compiled by the QS Intelligence Unit in close consultation with an international advisory board of leading academics.