Chulalongkorn University maintained the top position of Thai universities ranked against the world's best, but Mahidol University is moving up quickly in the rankings released early Tuesday.
CU led all Thai universities by moving up one spot to 252 in the QS World University Rankings released on Tuesday. But the second-ranked Mahidol leapt 12 notches to 283 from 295.
The rankings are by Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd of Britain, usually known as QS.
Six other universities in Thailand were rated in the rankings and their ratings remained unchanged from last year. Individual rankings were not given.
Chiang Mai University was in the range between 551 and 600, and Thammasat University fell in the 601-650 range. Kasetsart Universities, Khon Kaen University, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi and Prince of Songkhla University were all listed, below 700.
The report pointed to a weakness of Thai universities. "Thai universities are struggling to impose their research on the global stage," it said. "All eight Thai universities drop in rank for citations per faculty scores."
In Southeast Asia, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University were the best in the region with the same world rankings as last year at 12 and 13 respectively.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was still the best in the world. Stanford University swapped second best with Havard, which was dropped to third. The University of Cambridge, which shared the third spot with Stanford last year, dropped to fourth for 2016.