Times Higher Education 2015 Top 100 Asia University Rankings

China has overtaken Japan as Asia’s number one nation for producing top universities.

While Japan’s University of Tokyo is the highest-placed institution in the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2015, the country has lost ground overall, with the balance of power now tilting towards mainland China.

Japan has 19 universities in the prestigious top 100, down from 20 last year and 22 in 2013, and 15 of those have slipped down the list, by an average of 5.8 places.

By contrast, mainland China now has 21 representatives, up from 18 last year and 15 in 2013, and many of these are rising up the table, including Peking University (fourth) and Tsinghua University (fifth), which have both moved up a place. Wuhan University has also climbed an impressive 15 places to joint 49th.

China’s special administrative regions are also performing well, with all six of Hong Kong’s ranked universities in the top 50, while Macau has made its debut in the table with the University of Macau entering in joint 40th place.

The shift in power towards China takes place against a backdrop of investment in research and development while Japan wrestles with cuts as a result of its crippling level of public debt.

Gerard Postiglione, director of the Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education in China at the University of Hong Kong, said that Japan’s declining performance is due to a combination of “a lot of inbreeding” at its universities (graduates teaching at the same university at which they studied); research funding being concentrated at its top-tier institutions; and fewer promotion opportunities for young academics.

“[China] started from scratch and rose quickly from the 1990s when they didn’t have world-class universities, whereas Japan was already at a pretty high level, so its productivity has levelled off for a few years,” he said.

Simon Marginson, professor of international higher education at the UCL Institute of Education, agreed that higher education in Japan is “now largely standing still”.

“Japan is careful to maintain the leading edge of its very top universities such as Tokyo and Kyoto, but has been less committed than has China to pumping more investment into the universities on the next level,” he said.

Phil Baty, THE Rankings editor, added: “Now is not the time for [Japan] to rest on existing reputation – it must act, and quickly, if it is to arrest its decline.”

Taiwan’s performance is continuing to decline – six universities have fallen out of the top 100 since the rankings’ first year in 2013 – while India’s progress has faltered, with the majority of its institutions losing ground.

Country	Number of Institutions in Top 100
China	21
Japan	19
South Korea	13
Taiwan	11
India	9
Hong Kong	6
Turkey	6
Israel	4
Iran	3
Singapore	2
Saudi Arabia	2
Thailand	2
Lebanon	1
Macau	1

Asia University Rankings 2015 Top 100 

Rank	University	Location
1	The University of Tokyo	Japan
2	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore
3	The University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
4	Peking University	China
5	Tsinghua University	China
6	Seoul National University	South Korea
7	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
8	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
9	Kyoto University	Japan
10	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
11	Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech)	South Korea
12	Middle East Technical University	Turkey
13	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
14	Boğaziçi University	Turkey
15	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
16	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
17	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
18	Osaka University	Japan
19	Istanbul Technical University	Turkey
19	Tohoku University	Japan
21	Sabanci University	Turkey
22	Tel Aviv University	Israel
23	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
24	Fudan University	China
25	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
26	Korea University	South Korea
26	University of Science and Technology of China	China
28	Yonsei University	South Korea
29	The Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
30	Bilkent University	Turkey
31	Technion Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
32	Nagoya University	Japan
33	Tokyo Metropolitan University	Japan
34	National Tsing Hua University	Taiwan
35	Nanjing University	Nanjing
36	National Chiao Tung University	Taiwan
37	Indian Institute of Science	India
38	Panjab University	India
39	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
40	Tokyo Medical and Dental University	Japan
40	University of Macau	Macau
42	Sun Yat-sen University	China
43	Sharif University of Technology	Iran
44	Renmin University of China	China
45	Hong Kong Baptist University	Hong Kong
46	Zhejiang University	China
47	Koç University	Turkey
48	University of Tsukuba	Japan
49	National Cheng Kung University	Taiwan
49	University of Seoul	South Korea
49	Wuhan University	China
52	National Taiwan University of Science and Technology	Taiwan
53	Ewha Womans University	South korea
54	Hanyang University	South korea
55	Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee	India
55	King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thonburi	Thailand
57	India Institute of Technology, Bombay	India
58	Kyushu University	Japan
59	Waseda University	Japan
60	Wuhan University of Technology	China
61	Isfahan University of Technology	Iran
62	National Sun Yat-Sen University	Taiwan
63	Hokkaido University	Japan
64	National Central University	Taiwan
65	India Institute of Technology, Delhi	India
66	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
67	China Medical University of Taiwan	Taiwan
67	Kyung Hee University	South Korea
69	Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur	India
69	Iran University of Science and Technology	Iran
71	King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals	Saudi Arabia
72	King Saud University	Saudi Arabia
73	Keio University	Japan
73	National Taiwan Normal University	Taiwan
75	Bar-Ilan University	Israel
75	Juntendo University	Japan
75	Tianjin University	China
78	Hiroshima University	Japan
79	Indian Institute of Technology, Madras	India
80	East China Normal University	China
81	Kobe University	Japan
82	Dalian University of Technology	China
83	Hunan University	China
84	South China University of Technology	China
85	East China University of Science and Technology	China
85	University of Ulsan	South Korea
87	Tongji University	China
88	American University of Beirut	Lebanon
88	Okayama University	Japan
90	Aligarh Muslim University	India
91	Mahidol University	Thailand
91	Osaka City University	Japan
93	Asia University, Taiwan	Taiwan
94	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
95	Xi'an Jiaotong University	China
96	Jawaharlal Nehru University	India
97	Chung-Ang University	South Korea
98	National Yang-Ming University	Taiwan
99	Chiba University	Japan
100	Pusan National University	South Korea

Source - Times Higher Education

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