CWP alum Cheng-Chwee Kuik named Stanford University's list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists for 2026
in October of 2026 CWP alum Cheng-Chwee Kuik was included in the Stanford University's list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists for 2026 in the subfield of IR.
According to Prof Kuik, the announcement by Stanford was "unexpected because although this is the 4th time my work has appeared on the list, this is the 1st time it has been ranked 1st in Asia (and 31st globally) in IR under the “Single-Year Impact” category. At first, I found it hard to believe. I finally asked my former research assistant and co-author, Zikri Rosli, to help me verify the listing through the TOPSCINET website and retrieve the official certificate and the list of leading IR scholars. Once it was confirmed, what I felt most was gratitude. The news is all the more meaningful because it comes as I mark my 30th year at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). I am truly honoured and humbled. I owe a great debt to my former boss, Professor Dato’ Zakaria Haji Ahmad, who brought me into the academic world in 1996. I am equally grateful to my teachers and mentors at multiple stages, in Malaysia and abroad, who patiently helped turn a shy, slow, small-town boy into a curious and eager researcher in International Relations. My heartfelt thanks also go to my students over the years. Your questions and discussions, in the classroom and beyond, pushed me to make sense of complex realities and to explain them more clearly. To my co-authors, colleagues and critics, thank you for feedback that has helped me grow in more ways than one. And to my family and friends, thank you for your love and support throughout this journey. Terima kasih. Kamsiah. TQ."
https://www.ukm.my/ikmas/news/tahniah-atas-pengiktirafan-top-2-scientists-2026/
https://topscinet.com/scientist_profile/Kuik,%20Cheng%20Chwee/2008/?stype=single_year
Cheng-Chwee Kuik is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is Professor of International Relations at the National University of Malaysia (UKM)’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) and concurrently a Nonresident Scholar at Carnegie China. He is Co-Founder of the East Asian International Relations (EAIR) Caucus, a research platform for exchange, engagement, and empowerment among foreign affairs professionals in Malaysia. He served as Head of the Writing Team for the Government of Malaysia’s inaugural Defence White Paper (2019-2020) and a member of the Consultative Council on Foreign Policy, Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023-2024). Previously he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” Program (CWP) and a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford's Department of Politics and International Relations.
Professor Kuik’s research focuses on small-state foreign and defence policies, Asian security, and international relations. Cheng-Chwee’s publications have appeared in such peer-reviewed journals as International Affairs, Pacific Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Journal of Chinese Political Science, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. He is co-author with David M. Lampton and Selina Ho of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, October 2020), and co-editor with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo of Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (Routledge 2016). Kuik's essay, “The Essence of Hedging” was awarded the biennial 2009 Michael Leifer Memorial Prize by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for best article published in any of the three ISEAS journals.
Kuik is a regular invited speaker to international conferences and closed-door policy roundtables. His current projects include: hedging in international relations, elite legitimation and foreign policy choices, and the host-country agency in connectivity cooperation. Cheng-Chwee serves on the editorial boards/committees of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Perspective, Asian Politics and Policy, International Journal of Asian Studies, and East Asian Policy. He holds an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
Photo Credit: https://www.ukm.my/ikmas/news/tahniah-atas-pengiktirafan-top-2-scientists-2026/
https://topscinet.com/scientist_profile/Kuik,%20Cheng%20Chwee/2008/?stype=single_year
