The Rise of Asia Part I


International university rankings have been around long anough to show signs of long term trends. Making sense of the THE QS rankings is, however, complicated by frequent changes of methodologyand occasional errors. The Shanghai rankings seem to be another matter. There has only been one significant change in method, in 2004 when articles in Nature and Science were counted for five years rather than three. It should be possible then to determine some general trends in research performance from 2004 and 2008.



These rankings do not indicate the exact position of universities but place them within broad bands. This is understandable but rather pointless since positions can be calculated from the component indicators in less than half an hour.


If we compare the positions of various universities then some interesting changes begin to emerge .

Between 2004 and 2008 Chinese universities have advanced steadily. Peking from 296th to 241st, Tsinghua from 213rd to 203rd, Nanjing from 330rd to 292nd, University of Science and Technology China from 333rd to 243rd, Zhejiang from 350th to 226th, Fudan from 372nd to 325th and Jilin from 478th to 430th.



Shanghai Jiao Tong University itself rose from 461st to 257th.


In addition, seven Chinese universities entered the rankings between 2004 and 2008.


Taiwanese universities also rose: National Taiwan University from 174th to 164th, National Tsing Hua Univeristy from 362nd to 309th and National Cheng Kung University from 408th to 305th.


The picture for Hong Kong universities is mixed. The University of Hong Kong , the Chinese University of Hong Kiong and City Univeristy of Hong Kong went up but the Hong Kong University of Science and Technlogy and the Kong Kong Polytechnic University went down.

In a little while we shall see whether these trends continue.