HKU best in Asia again, and two other universities in the top four

The University of Hong Kong has been ranked the best university in Asia for the second year running in a league table of nearly 450 tertiary institutions across 11 countries.

Hong Kong again claimed three of the top four places in the QS Asian University Rankings - Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came in second and Chinese University fourth - and had a record six universities in the top 50.

There were 41 mainland universities in the top 200 - two more than last year - but Peking, Tsinghua and Shanghai Jiao Tong slipped slightly.

HKUST jumped up two places in the ranking, pushing Chinese University into fourth behind National University of Singapore, which vaulted from 10th to third. Tokyo fell two places, but Japanese universities did well overall, taking five of the top 10 spots and 57 of the top 200.

The rankings published today are the second Asian university rankings prepared by QS, the company that has compiled the Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings for the past five years. In the 2009 ranking, HKU was 24th in the world and second in Asia.

QS managing director Nunzio Quacquarelli said: 'Hong Kong has shown in the ranking that it is one of the leading centres of higher education in the region and can be truly proud of having so many excellent universities.' The international outlook of Hong Kong's universities gave them the edge in the region, with six institutions achieving the maximum score for international faculty and four getting it for international students. 'And the reason HKU does so well is that it also scores maximum points for citations per paper and in our academic peer review,' he said.