Sultan Qaboos University has achieved a new milestone in the 2027 QS World University Rankings, rising 28 places to rank 306th globally. The University was previously ranked 334th in the 2026 edition of the rankings.
This advancement marks another significant achievement for the University and reflects its ongoing efforts to enhance performance, strengthen academic excellence, and maintain continuous progress across its educational and research activities.
His Highness Sayyid Dr. Fahd bin Al Julanda bin Majid Al Said, the Vice Chancellor, stated that Sultan Qaboos University's achievement of 306th place globally in the QS World University Rankings 2027 reflects the collective efforts of its faculty, staff, and students in education, research, strategic partnerships, and reaffirms its distinguished position among the world's leading universities.
This achievement comes amid the strong support extended to the higher education sector under the wise leadership of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik—may Allah protect him. It also reflects the progress made toward achieving the objectives of Oman Vision 2040 and strengthening the Sultanate of Oman's global competitiveness in knowledge and innovation indicators.
QS analysed data from 8,808 universities across 106 countries and included 1,504 institutions in the final list for the 2027 rankings. This year's edition also saw the addition of 94 new universities to the rankings.
In addition, QS bases its analysis, rankings, and evaluations on nine key indicators, each assigned a different weighting. These indicators include academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations, the faculty-to-student ratio, the proportion of international faculty members, the proportion of international students, the international research network, employment outcomes, and sustainability.
SQU also demonstrated notable progress across several indicators, achieving higher scores in employer reputation, research citations, international research networks, and employment outcomes.
The University has made various efforts to sustain this progress by taking initiatives to strengthen its performance across different indicators. In particular, it enhanced its employer reputation indicator by aligning its outcomes with labour market needs.
The University also expanded its partnerships with employers in both the public and private sectors, organised career fairs and professional events, and conducted workshops to raise awareness among institutions about the employer reputation indicator.
In addition, the University hosted the Sultan Qaboos University Employers Forum, which addressed key challenges and put forward recommendations aimed at further strengthening the university's employer reputation. These efforts were complemented by the enhancement of the university's employer database and ongoing engagement with employers.
As for the employment outcomes indicator, the university worked to improve the quality of data provided by the National Records Centre of the Royal Oman Police and to provide accurate and reliable information on the university's graduates, thereby strengthening the university's standing in this indicator within the QS World University Rankings and the Ministry of Economy for the support of the strategic project aimed at enhancing the University's position in global university ranking.
The university also implemented several initiatives to enhance the research citations and international research network indicators. These included scientific publishing support programmes and participation in international conferences, which contributed to improving the quality of research output and increasing its global reach.
With this new ranking, SQU continues to move steadily toward achieving its strategic objective in global university rankings, in alignment with the objectives of Oman Vision 2040, which aims to position the university among the world's top 300 universities in the QS World University Rankings.