PESHAWAR: The Institute of Management Sciences (IMSciences), Peshawar, has secured the top position in the first-ever provincial university ranking system launched by the Higher Education Department (HED), Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Achieving a perfect relative score of 100.00, IMSciences emerged as the number one institution overall among 43 evaluated universities across the province. This landmark ranking was officially unveiled during a press conference in Peshawar by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Higher Education and Local Government, Meena Khan Afridi, alongside Information Minister Shafi Jan and various higher education leaders.
According to data presented in the official ranking document, IMSciences is followed in the top standings by Hazara University, Mansehra, which secured second place with a score of 95.02, and the Pak-Austria Fachhochschule – Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (PAF-IAST), Haripur, in third place with a score of 91.28. The rest of the top ten tier includes the University of Malakand (90.01), University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar (89.89), GIKI Topi Swabi (89.23), Khyber Medical University (KMU) Peshawar (87.93), Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (86.75), Kohat University of Science and Technology (84.23), and the University of Swat (82.38).
The new comprehensive evaluation framework is a major policy innovation for Pakistan’s higher education sector, assessing institutions across 12 major indicators and 66 sub-indicators spanning academic standards, research output, innovation, and institutional governance. Minister Meena Khan Afridi stated that the provincial government will now link future performance-based grants directly to these rankings to foster healthy competition and continuous improvement among institutions. The initiative aims to enhance transparency and accountability while building on provincial educational developments, which include the establishment of 14 new universities over the last 13 years.
