LAHORE: Eighteen Pakistani universities have secured places in the QS World University Rankings 2027 , with Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) retaining its status as the country’s highest-ranked institution despite slipping in the global standings but no university managed to break into the world’s top 350. The latest rankings, released by UK-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), showed mixed performance of the Pakistani institutions with QAU as well as the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) registering slight declines while the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS) posted improvement to emerge as the country’s third-highest ranked university. According to the rankings, QAU fell to joint 381 place from 354 last year while NUST slipped to 384 position from 371.