In the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) 2019/20, PolyU was ranked third for the subject of Architecture and tenth for the subject of Civil Engineering, the only local university to be in the top ten in both subjects. This was an improvement from the field rankings in 2017/18, where PolyU was 6th and 15th in Architecture and Civil Engineering respectively.
Since 2010, URAP has ranked world universities based on academic performance indicators that reflect the quality and the quantity of their scholarly publications. As a non-profit organization, it was established at the Informatics Institute of the Middle East Technical University in Turkey.