5 universities in Hong Kong rank in top 100 in ‘historic’ shift from West to East

Five public universities in Hong Kong have secured top 100 positions in the latest prestigious global university ranking, marking a significant shift in academic influence from the West to the East. The University of Hong Kong retained its 33rd place ranking, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong climbed to 42nd from 41st place in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology maintained its 58th position.

CUHK boasted full marks in five key performance metrics - research excellence, patents, research and institutional income, research productivity, and the proportion of international staff - alongside notable improvements in teaching reputation, student-staff ratio, and international student representation. CUHK's director expressed that these results indicate the university's consistent strength in teaching quality, research capacity, and global perspective.

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) climbed three spots to 70, its highest ranking yet, while Polytechnic University advanced one spot to 79. Baptist University maintained its position at 205th, previously falling within the 201-250 band. Lingnan University, which debuted in the rankings last year, reached 257th place, rising from the 301-350 band the previous year.

The rankings encompass 2,297 institutions across 118 countries and territories, an increase of 106 compared to last year. Data from over 3,000 universities worldwide, including about 20 million research papers and around 1 million votes from an academic reputation survey, contributed to the rankings. The five performance categories were teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

The rankings revealed a strong performance from Asian institutions, with a record number of universities participating and many top-ranked institutions improving their positions.

Asian universities broke into the global top 15 for the first time, with Tsinghua University from Beijing securing the 11th spot, up one from the previous year, followed by Peking University at 13th and the National University of Singapore at 15th. Beijing's Tsinghua University was the top Asian university overall. Hong Kong's universities, along with mainland China's institutions, contributed to a dominant shift in global higher education, as noted by THE chief global affairs officer Phil Baty.

He highlighted that the rankings reflect a permanent realignment of academic power from the West to the East, though the UK and US universities still dominate the top 10.