ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the emergence of university rankings has influenced one research university in Malaysia, which is also the national university. The Malaysian university system began with the founding of a few public universities offering a diverse range of academic and technical disciplines relevant to national development needs for an adequate pool of trained human capital. Malaysian research universities are subject to a process of performance review against key performance indicators (KPIs) determined by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and inherent in the major global rankings. Plagiarism and fabrication of data are apparently among the well-known unethical practices. The new policy for academic work, which focuses heavily on research, is also believed to have a tremendous impact on academic culture. The documented policies examined were the National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP), the University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) transformation strategic plan, and its research transformation strategic plan.
