Top of the class! Hong Kong University of Science and Technology rated city's number one in latest world rankings

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has ranked top among the city’s tertiary institutions, according to the latest QS World University Rankings.

HKUST, which jumped from 40th last year to 28th this year, beat the University of Hong Kong, at 30th this time, to become the top institution in the city. They were the only two local universities that made the top 50.

The city is on a par with its regional rivals – Singapore, Japan and South Korea – which also have two top-50 institutions.

The QS World University Rankings, which have been setting league tables for universities worldwide since 2005, assess institutions through six criteria: academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio and international faculty ratio.

Chinese University, which was 46th last year, was pushed out of the top 50 this time, coming in at 51st. However, it shares a top-50 slot with HKU for academic reputation.

QS head of research Ben Sowter said the drop for the University of Hong Kong and Chinese University was due to a change in the way that citations per faculty were evaluated. There used to be a historical bias towards life sciences and medicine.