SINGAPORE — The National University of Singapore (NUS) has been named Asia’s top university for the third year in a row on the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, just ahead of Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Globally, NUS and NTU were ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, for the second year running. The top three universities are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University and Harvard University.

Singapore Management University, which was not ranked in previous years, was ranked 431th in the world and 60th in Asia this year.

The latest QS World University Rankings were released on Tuesday (Sept 6). NTU President, Professor Bertil Anderson, said Singaporeans should be proud that Singapore is the only country other than Switzerland to break the UK-US duopoly among the top global universities.

“Singapore and Switzerland are similar in many ways — both are small but smart nations. Only celebrating its silver jubilee this year, NTU is a young university compared to the American and British universities that dominate the list. So it is exciting to see how far we have come in such a short time,” Prof Anderson said.

NTU has jumped 45 places since the 2011 QS world rankings.

NUS President Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, whose school also placed 9th and 11th globally for employer and academic reputation respectively, added that NUS would continue to focus on “building new research peaks, increasing the translational impact of our research, and nurturing a vibrant university enterprise ecosystem.

“We are happy that these efforts have been recognised by our ranking among the world’s top universities, and Asia’s best. We are also heartened that NUS is placed number one in Singapore for both academic as well as employer reputation,” Prof Tan said.

NUS was placed 22nd in the world in 2014, before climbing to 12th last year. In 2014, NTU was placed 39th before improving to 13th last year.

QS' TOP 30 UNIVERSITIES 2016

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

2. Stanford University

3. Harvard University

4. University of Cambridge

5. California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

6. University of Oxford

7. UCL (University College London)

8. ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

9. Imperial College London

10. University of Chicago

11. Princeton University

12. National University of Singapore (NUS)

13. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)

14. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

15. Yale University

16. Cornell University

17. Johns Hopkins University

18. University of Pennsylvania

19. The University of Edinburgh

20. Columbia University

21. King's College London

22. The Australian National University

23. University of Michigan

24. Tsinghua University

24. Duke University

26. Northwestern University

27. The University of Hong Kong

28. University of California, Berkeley (UCB)

29. The University of Manchester

30. McGill University