The University of Macau (UM) said in a statement on Monday that it now ranks among the top 0.1 percent worldwide in the research areas of engineering, computer science, and pharmacology & toxicology, according to the latest data from the Essential Science Indicators (ESI).
The public university’s rankings in these areas are up from its previous position in the top 1.0 percent, the statement noted.
The statement said that the ESI database ranks institutions based on citation frequency of their papers and includes only the top 1.0 percent most cited papers over the past 10 years. UM is included in the ESI database for 15 research fields.
The public university said that it attributes the achievement to “its focused research strategy, which emphasises key technological areas and has produced outstanding results in industry-academia collaboration”.
The statement highlighted that through years of effort, the university has established a “leading position in cutting-edge fields” such as microelectronics, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, data science, intelligent manufacturing, green and low-carbon development, new energy, and new materials”.
The statement also elaborated on UM’s progress and achievements in the microelectronics field, noting that the State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI at UM has “made significant achievements in core technologies such as data conversion, power management, wireless communications, and voice signal processing”. It highlighted that UM ranked first among Chinese universities in terms of the number of papers accepted at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference in both 2023 and 2024.
The statement noted that in computer science, UM has also made “remarkable progress” in recent years, among which are UM ranking 101st in the 2024-2025 US News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings for computer science, along with “breakthroughs and innovations in critical areas such as AI, big data, and computing systems”.
In the field of pharmacology & toxicology, the statement said that through the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences and the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, the university has established several prominent pharmaceutical research platforms including the UM Centre for Pharmaceutical Regulatory Sciences. The centre is recognised by the Pharmaceutical Administration Bureau (ISAF) to “conduct third-party technical assessments for the registration of proprietary Chinese medicines”, and it is also the first research platform in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) “dedicated to regulatory science and international drug registration strategies”, the statement said. The statement also highlighted the key role of the UM Macao Centre for Testing of Chinese Medicine.
Moreover, “UM is ranked 33rd in the 2024-2025 US News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings for pharmacology and toxicology, the highest ranking among universities in Hong Kong and Macau”, the statement said.
This undated handout photo provided by the University of Macau (UM) earlier this week shows a researcher looking through a microscope.
