Al-Monitor is always watching the trends in the Middle East and one area we’ve been following closely is higher education. We’ve covered the difficulty university graduates have finding employment in Gaza, Turkey’s efforts to launch its own competitor to Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, and how Israel’s ultra-Orthodox women are fighting for their right to attend university.

We’ve put together a special series on higher education across the region and will continue to follow developments as well as provide additional information on how to choose the right university for you and where to look for scholarships and funding to attend school.

As a part of this series we are pleased to republish the 2015 U.S. News rankings of the top universities in the Arab countries. For the full list of U.S. News' 2015 Best Arab region Universities in English, please visit the U.S. News website and for the full list in Arabic please click here.

This is the first release of the U.S. News Best Arab Region Universities Rankings. The rankings are based on bibliometric data and research metrics. Bibliometric data focuses on the amount of research published and the number of relevant citations. Detailed information about the rankings methodology process can be found on the U.S. News website.