Young University Rankings 2022: fastest-rising regions

View the THE Young University Rankings 2022 results

Young universities generally improve at a faster rate than their mature peers, but which countries are seeing the most rapid progress among their newly founded institutions?

The maps below show the average score change for young and old universities by country from the 2021 to 2022 editions of the World University Rankings. Newer universities in mainland China are gaining the most ground, but institutions aged 50 years and under in Canada, Sweden, the UK, India and Brazil are also rising in score, suggesting that the success of young universities is not concentrated in a single region.

Youthful universities in Saudi Arabia are also making strong progress, although not advancing as quickly as the more established institutions in the Middle Eastern country. In Egypt, meanwhile, the improvement is similar for both groups of institutions. Older universities in the US and Russia are also rising faster than their younger domestic counterparts.

Meanwhile, the bar chart shows the share of universities in the latest World University Rankings that are aged 50 years and under in each region. It reveals that Africa has the highest share of new higher education institutions, with 67 per cent of ranked universities in the continent having been founded in the past half-century. The majority of universities in Oceania are also young, driven by Australia’s higher education expansion from the 1970s to the 1990s.

At the other end of the scale, just 5 per cent of North America’s ranking representatives are 50 years or younger, reflecting the maturity of the region’s higher education systems.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com