PolyU shoots up in Britain-based higher education rankings, while HKU remains top university in Hong Kong despite drop
- Hong Kong’s institutions of higher learning see mixed results in latest Times Higher Education rankings
- The list includes the highest number of Asian universities in its top 100 in its 17-year history
The University of Hong Kong, however, dropped four places in the rankings to become the world’s 39th-best university – while keeping its place as the highest-ranked local institution – in the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. The fall came after HKU achieved a seven-year high in last year’s rankings.
Tsinghua University, in mainland China, remained the highest-ranked Asian institution, climbing by three spots to 20th place globally, followed by Peking University at 23rd. Tsinghua was the first institution in Asia to break into the top 20 since 2011.
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The National University of Singapore was ranked third-highest in Asia, maintaining its position at 25th overall. A total of 16 Asian universities made it into the top 100, the highest number on record in the annual rankings 17-year history.
The latest edition, released on Wednesday, covered more than 1,500 higher education institutions from 93 countries and regions, with universities assessed on 13 sets of indicators, including quality of teaching and learning, research strength and number of citations, as well as international outlook, which takes into account the proportion of international students and staff.
Nonetheless, Chinese University (CUHK) rose from 57th to 56th in the latest THE rankings, while Polytechnic University (PolyU) surged from 171st to 129th, a result researchers said was driven by a significant increase in citations, or the number of times its research was referenced in international papers.
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City University maintained its ranking of 126th, while the University of Science and Technology (HKUST) saw a drop from 47th to 56th, tying with CUHK. Baptist University, which was included in the 401-500 class in 2020, also improved to join the 351-400 class.
A Times Higher Education spokesman, meanwhile, said the impact of the anti-government protests on Hong Kong universities’ rankings was “unclear”.
“We’re still not clear whether this is having an impact on the strength of [the] universities,” he said.
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“This is partly due to our data collection cycle, which has not, in large parts, captured 2019 and 2020 yet. Some of the reputation data used this year is from a survey that covers 2019 and early 2020.”
A PolyU spokeswoman, meanwhile, called the leap in rankings “very encouraging”, saying the university would seek to continue to elevate education and research performance in the face of various challenges.
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HKU said in a statement that it strived to provide quality education, as well as teaching and research excellence, adding that it “firmly believes” its “commitment to being Asia’s global university will enhance our international reputation”.
HKUST and Baptist University said they would take the rankings as a reference for improvements, while Chinese and City universities only said they would continue to strive for excellence in teaching and research output.
British and American universities continued to occupy the top spots in world rankings, with the University of Oxford maintaining the No 1 position, and Stanford and Harvard rising to second and third, respectively.
