Times Higher Education (THE) have announced the latest results of their Asian University Rankings at a summit in Kuala Lumpur. These results reflect significant methodological changes to the world rankings and further adjustments to the regional rankings.
The Asian rankings now have a “pillar” that combines the number of patents citing a university’s research with research funds from industry and has a weighting of 10%. Another significant change is that field-weighted citation impact now has a 7.5% weighting compared with 15% in the current world rankings and 30% in the previous Asian rankings. There are three new measures of citations, namely research excellence, strength, and influence.
At the very top, little has changed. Tsinghua University is first followed by Peking University and the National University of Singapore. Nanyang Technological University has risen to fourth place, replacing the University of Hong Kong. The University of Tokyo has risen from eighth to fifth place.
East Asia continues to dominate the region. Of the top 25 universities, 10 are in Mainland China, four are in Hong Kong, four are in South Korea, and three are in Japan.
Although the Indian Institute of Science has risen significantly, other Indian schools, such as the JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, and Mahatma Gandhi University, have fallen behind.
The Arab Region has suffered badly. King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, has fallen from 20th to 84th,, Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia, from 53rd to 201-250, the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, from 71st to 131st, An Najjah National University, Palestine, from 113 rd to 401-450, and Jordan University of Science and Technology from 133rd to 251-300.
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