The Webometrics Ranking Report released on 31st January 2024, has placed MMUST amongst the top performing Universities in Kenya. MMUST is the first in Openness Parameter, fifth in the Impact and Excellence Parameters and the sixth most improved in Kenya amongst the top twelve (12) Universities. Notably, MMUST is position 9 nationally out of 124 Universities. In Africa, the institution was ranked at position 212 out of 2057, which is a tremendous improvement from position 223 in July 2023. Further, the University was ranked at position 4540 out of 11995 globally, having improved by 153 positions.
This is an improvement from the July 2023 Webometrics ranking, which the Vice Chancellor-Prof. Solomon Shibairo, expressed his delight in, and congratulated every staff who worked towards ensuring that the University achieves the feat.
The DVC Planning Research and Innovation, Prof. Charles Mutai noted that the Impact parameter accounts for 50% of the entire score and needs more focus by the University. He commended researchers in the University for their good research work, adding that the University Management will continue to support research activities through university grants.
In a bid to improve publications and attain the status of Scopus and Scimago, the University has established five journals, which will ensure that researchers can easily publish.
The DVC PRI, Prof. Mutai follows keenly as Coordinator Webometrics, Dr. Dennis Ochieno explains a point regarding MMUST’s webometrics ranking.
“In order to improve the University’s standing among its peers, there is need for us to increase the number of external networks, collaborations and linkages to ensure visibility of the institution. The Division of Planning, Research and Innovation will continue to support these endeavours. I commend the good work done by Webometrics Champions and the Coordinating unit of Webometrics for putting their best foot forward to ensure that the University improves in ranking,” said Prof. Mutai.
Echoing the DVCs remarks, the Director Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, Prof. Joseph Nasongo said that this ranking system has been adopted by the Government of Kenya as the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation reference system for universities and research institutes. MMUST had set a performance target of improving by 10 positions globally; attaining 153 positions is over 100 times the performance target. The current world position 4540 is the best that MMUST has ever attained. Notably, MMUST has retained its position 9 nationally; besides being position 212 out of 2057 in Africa.
According to the Coordinator Short Courses and Webometrics, Dr. Dennis Ochieno, MMUST has performed well in the three parameters used in ranking.
“The Excellence parameter focuses on the number of top 10% most cited papers analyzed from the Scimago database. The Openness parameter in which MMUST has excelled the most, accounts for 10% of the overall ranking and involves citations by Google Scholar, which were directly retrieved from the staff profiles on University websites. In order to maintain the front position in this parameter, MMUST academic staff and postgraduate students are urged to ensure linkage of their Google Scholar Profiles to their Staff Profiles on the website,” said Dr. Ochieno.
With such outstanding performance, MMUST is certainly poised for global visibility in research and international linkages, proving its mettle as a University of Science and Technology.
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