Hong Kong universities fall behind mainland Chinese institution in world rankings for first time in five years

For the first time in five years, a mainland Chinese university has beaten its counterparts in Hong Kong to squeeze into Asia’s top three on the latest QS World University Rankings, thanks to a revision in the methods used to compile the rankings.

The revision this year has compensated for a “historical bias” towards life sciences and natural sciences. It has also accounted for papers in arts, humanities, social sciences and management published in languages other than English.

“China’s investment in higher education and research in the past decade has been amazing,” said QS head of research Ben Sowter. “Besides much progress in engineering and technology, our revised and more balanced evaluation on research impact has enabled China to show stronger performances.”

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Tsinghua University has this year climbed to third in Asia and 25th worldwide in the rankings. It is followed in the region by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in fourth, which performed the best among all universities in Hong Kong and ranked 28th in the world.

In the past four years, Tsinghua ranked between 9th and 10th in Asia.

The methodological changes have also allowed HKUST, jumping from 40th last year, to outperform the University of Hong Kong. HKU is ranked fifth in Asia and 30th in the world this time, down from last year’s second in Asia and 28th in the world.

Chinese University, which was 46th last year, was pushed out of the top 50 for the first time, coming in at 51st.