Ajman, UAE: Gulf Medical University (GMU), the flagship academic institution of Thumbay Group, has been ranked #1 in the world for International Outlook in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027.
GMU scored 99.4, the highest of all 2,297 universities from 118 countries and territories in this year’s rankings. It is also #1 in the UAE for International Outlook.
This is GMU’s first time in THE’s World University Rankings. It has entered in the 1001–1200 band overall and is the only specialised medical and health sciences university in the UAE ranked in the 2027 edition.
International Outlook is one of the five pillars THE uses to assess universities. It looks at three things: how many of a university’s students come from abroad, how many of its staff do, and how much of its research is published with international co-authors. In short, it measures how global a university really is. GMU scored the highest among 2,297 universities ranked worldwide.
A global campus in Ajman
GMU was built on a simple idea: the best healthcare education happens when students, faculty and researchers from different parts of the world learn side by side. Today its campus brings together students from more than 115 nationalities and faculty from 56 countries, learning and working together in classrooms, at Thumbay’s academic hospitals and through research partnerships across the globe.
The ranking also strengthens the UAE’s position as a global destination for health sciences education. Students no longer need to look to traditional study hubs for world-class medical training.
Prof. Manda Venkatramana, Chancellor, Gulf Medical University, said: “Entering THE’s World University Rankings for the first time and going straight to #1 in the world for International Outlook speaks a lot about who we are. Healthcare has no borders, and neither does education. This recognition belongs to our students, our faculty and our partners, and to the UAE, a country that opened its doors to the world and made a result like this possible. We will keep building on it as we strengthen our research and academic performance across every pillar.”
Prof. Ammar Almaaytah, Dean, Quality Assurance & Institutional Effectiveness, Gulf Medical University, said: “A score of 99.4 is not luck. It is the result of years of deliberate work to recruit talent from around the world, build genuine international research collaborations and hold ourselves to global standards in everything we measure. Our first entry into THE’s World University Rankings gives us a clear, independent benchmark. Now the work is to raise our performance across all five pillars, so the rest of our rankings reflect the same quality the world now sees in our International Outlook.”
Gulf Medical University, Ajman, is a private medical university in the UAE and the academic anchor of Thumbay Group’s integrated healthcare ecosystem. It offers programs across medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physical therapy, biomedical sciences and healthcare management, with clinical training delivered through Thumbay’s largest network of academic hospitals. Learn more at www.gmu.ac.ae.
_Sathish Kapikad
