This paper examines the responses of a Malaysian public university, namely Universiti Sains Malaysia, to the impact of globalisation vis-à-vis three key issues: international students, academic publications and world university rankings. There are concerted efforts put in place by the university to recruit more international students. But a global branding is needed to offset factors that have worked against its recruitment of international students. In the area of academic publications, there has been an increased emphasis on publications in citation-indexed journals in line with the globalised context of academic publications. Concerted efforts have also been put in place to enhance the reputation of academic journals published by the university. It is in the area of world university rankings that the counter-globalisation stand of the university has been most thought provoking in that it has rejected this standard benchmark for academic excellence by proposing an alternative benchmark.