VSU is Top 11 university in the Philippines according to Webometrics

VSU continues to assert its position among the top-performing higher education institutions in the country as it ranks 11th out of 365 Philippine universities in the January 2025 edition of the Ranking Web of Universities, formerly the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.

Globally, VSU secured the 4,513th spot and is the only university in Eastern Visayas to enter the 5,000 circle among 31,364 schools evaluated this year. Leyte Normal University is the next highest-ranked institution in the region, placing 12,047th in the world ranking.

This ranking marks a one-step drop from VSU’s top 10 place standing in the July 2024 edition. The adjustment is due to the inclusion of a new University of the Philippines (UP) campus which reshuffled the national rankings. Despite this, VSU remains firm among the country’s best universities. 

The Ranking Web of Universities is developed by a European research think tank called Cybermetrics Lab under the National Research Council of Spain. It evaluates over 31,000 universities worldwide, and serves as a global measure of a university’s academic web presence and research influence rather than a simple assessment of website popularity. 

It assesses the web content visibility (Impact Rank), measures the number of top-cited researchers affiliated with the university based on Google Scholar profiles (Openness Rank), and tracks research productivity through highly cited papers indexed in Scimago. 

VSU’s performance over the years

VSU’s trajectory in the Webometrics rankings has seen steady progress.

The university climbed from 114th place in 2015 to 33rd in 2016, before reaching 27th in 2017. VSU was ranked 18th in 2018, and 19th in both 2019 and 2020. It achieved its highest ranking at 8th place in both 2021 and 2022. 

While fluctuations have occurred in recent years, VSU has remained within the Top 10 to 11 range that reinforces its strong standing in the country. 

Former Head of the University Integrated Media Center (UIMC), now University Integrated Media and Public Affairs (UIMPA), Dr. Ulderico B. Alviola,  took to social media and emphasized that the significant progress of VSU’s web ranking performance highlights the crucial role of digital storytelling in enhancing our university’s online presence by increasing external backlinks and online mentions. 

“Let me clarify though that Ranking Web is more than just ranking of websites of universities as it has long pivoted to evaluating universities using both webometric and bibliometric indicators,” he added.

VSU President Dr. Prose Ivy G. Yepes acknowledged the VSU’s strong performance while also recognizing areas for improvement. 

She said that while VSU saw a minor shift in ranking, its presence in the Top 11 is a manifestation of the university’s strengths in research, academic visibility, and digital influence. 

Towards the end of last year, VSU started to enhance faculty research profiles, increase Scopus-indexed publications, and strengthen academic citations to sustain and improve the university’s position in regional, national, and international rankings. 

This article is aligned with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4: Quality Education.

• Prev
• Next