Times Higher Education’s Asia University Rankings for 2017 have revealed that the National University of Singapore has retained its position as the top university in Asia.
In fact, the 2017 top five contains the same universities as the 2016 top five, albeit with a slight shifting of positions.
View the 2017 Best Universities in Asia
Peking University holds its second place position and Tsinghua University has climbed two places to go from last year’s number five to this year’s number three. Nanyang Technological University takes this year’s fourth place and the University of Hong Kong rounds off the top five.
Japan is the most represented country with 69 institutions and China is the second with 54. For the first time, India has become the third most represented country in the ranking with 33 universities.
The rankings have expanded to now include 300 institutions, compared with the 200 universities last year. This has provided a broader picture, not just of the current high-performers, but also for the countries and institutions that may become stronger in the future.
Looking outside the top five indicates that some Asian countries could be poised to become more prominent players in higher education, including Malaysia (nine institutions), Indonesia (two), Thailand (10) and Pakistan (seven).
Of these, Malaysia is perhaps showing the most promise, with seven of its nine institutions present in the top 200, up from four last year.
The methodology for the Asia University Rankings 2017 reflects that of the World University Rankings and is based on the same 13 performance indicators. However, the indicators have been recalibrated to reflect the priorities of Asian institutions. You can access the full methodology here if you want to know how the table is put together.
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