China Subject Ratings 2024: the fifth edition

Browse the full results of the China Subject Ratings 2024

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings have tracked the remarkable rise of China’s universities for 20 years.

In the 2024 edition of the world rankings, China’s Tsinghua University reached a record high – ranking 12th place in the world, while Peking University took 14th place. It was the first time in the rankings’ history that China had two world top 15 universities. Overall, China had a record 13 universities in the top 200 – up from seven in 2020 – with each of them improving their ranking significantly.

Since their foundation in 2004, the THE World University Rankings have become a globally trusted “gold standard” benchmark for research-led universities and governments worldwide – now with 18 separate performance indicators providing unique, globally comparable data covering all the core activities of a world-class university, including teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

But because we provide data-driven insights to students, universities, businesses and governments worldwide, THE understands the global demand for ever richer and deeper data analyses and powerful tools to help our communities make the right decisions. We recognise that this requires us to continually refine and update what we do and to adapt our data to national contexts – particularly in providing more granular subject-level detail.

This is why we are delighted to present the fifth annual edition of the China Subject Ratings (CSR) – a bespoke focus on 83 subject areas, drawing on the key metrics and data from the trusted and established THE World University Rankings, but going into much greater subject-level detail.

The CSR was designed in deep consultation with Chinese universities to align with China’s own national development and benchmarking requirements. The ratings use a Chinese taxonomy of subject definitions and Chinese subject groupings. They also deploy a unique Chinese version of our trusted global Academic Reputation Survey – to include more Chinese voices and to enrich our understanding of the Chinese sector at the deeper subject level.

But while the ratings were developed with a clear China focus, they put Chinese universities, vitally, in a global context, with the performance benchmarks mapping to the global university landscape. So they are not just a resource for Chinese students, universities and policymakers, but for the rest of the world too.

Phil Baty is chief global affairs officer at Times Higher Education.