Top Hong Kong universities see drop in world rankings, raising fears of worse outcome ahead because of anti-government protests

Some 21 of 39 subjects at HKU fared worse than the year before, while Chinese University saw a drop in 12 out of 37 subjects and PolyU fell in six of 24 subjects

HKUST avoids an overall drop, but director of research at QS World University Rankings warns of worse outcome in future because of protests

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The University of Hong Kong saw a drop in rankings in 21 of 39 subjects. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:00am, 4 Mar 2020Updated: 7:17am, 4 Mar 2020

Top Hong Kong universities have seen a number of their subjects drop in the latest global rankings, raising fears the ongoing social unrest in the city will further affect their competitiveness when its impact is manifested in the next few years.

The Britain-based education information firm, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), released World University Rankings by Subject 2020 on Wednesday, which showed a year-on-year drop for top-ranking subjects at institutions, including the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Chinese University.

Analysts said the latest rankings reflected the overall decline in the competitiveness of research conducted by Hong Kong universities, as the data was collected before the anti-government protests, which badly affected the city’s higher education sector in the second half of last year.

Despite a drop in rankings in many subjects, HKU remained the world’s fourth-best institution to study dentistry, while the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts was rated as the seventh-best higher education institution for performing arts, up six places from 13th last year.

Several universities became battlegrounds in the second half of 2019 as radical protesters occupied the campuses and engaged in fierce clashes with police. Photo: Winson Wong

The rankings compared 13,138 programmes in 48 disciplines provided by 1,368 tertiary institutions across 83 locations around the world. The results are based on four metrics: academic and employer reputation, research citations, and impact.