Three out of eight Thai universities have improved their standing in the QS World University Rankings for 2020 released by UK-based education and career consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
According to the list, Chulalongkorn University (CU) earned the top rank in the Thai University pool for the seventh consecutive year, improving on its ranking by 24 positions, from 271st place last year to 247th this year.
The second-highest placed Thai university, Mahidol, was ranked at 314th place, making an impressive 66-spot climb up from last year's placing.
Chiang Mai University emerged as the country's third best gainer, moving up from the 651-700 to the 601-650 band.
The other five Thai universities, meanwhile, retained their positions from last year.
Thammasat University was ranked in the 601-650 bracket, while Kasetsart University, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Khon Kaen University and Prince of Songkla University were ranked in the 801-1,000 bracket.
QS does not assign specific positions for universities rated below 500.
CU's president Bundhit Eua-arporn said this year's ranking is considered a big achievement for the CU as the list shows the university earned good scores in a number of areas.
"Chulalongkorn University is particularly proud of this accomplishment as the university placed the highest among Thai universities in this area for the seventh consecutive year,'' he said.
QS ranked 1,000 universities from 82 different locations, surveyed 94,000 academics and 44,000 hiring managers and analysed 11.8 million research papers and 100 million citations.
The universities were rated according to six components: academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), faculty-student ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), international faculty ratio (5%) and international student ratio (5%).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the global list this year while the second spot was taken by Stanford University. Harvard University and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) stood at third and fourth position on the list respectively.
In Asia, the top two universities are the National University of Singapore and its affiliate Nanyang Technological University at a shared 11th spot in the rankings.
China also saw impressive growth with the nation now boasting 19 of the world's top 200 research universities, increasing from 12 in 2016.
In Southeast Asia, apart from Singapore and Thailand, Malaysia's Universiti Malaya was ranked in 70th spot while Universiti Putra Malaysia ranked 159th and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia ranked 160th.
Indonesia's Universitas Indonesia was ranked in 296th place and Universiti Brunei Darussalam was ranked at 298th.