Asian univ. eclipses mainland Europe's best for 1st time in Times ranking

LONDON (Kyodo) -- For the first time in the latest annual global university ranking released Wednesday by British magazine Times Higher Education, an Asian institution climbed higher than the top mainland European university, marking a shift of academic power from the West to the East. Tsinghua University in China leapt to 11th place, surpassing the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

Peking University in China and the National University of Singapore also made the top 15 for the first time, bringing the total Asian universities to three. Among Japanese institutions, the University of Tokyo fell from 26th to 27th and Kyoto University from 61st to 62nd. Japan ranked fourth in the number of global institutions, with 112, a drop from 115 the previous year.

The ranking's global affairs officer, Phil Baty, stated that the tectonic plates of global higher education are shifting permanently, witnessing a historic realignment of academic power from West to East. The top 10 remained dominated by British and American institutions, led by the University of Oxford for the 11th consecutive year, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. The United States saw the lowest number of institutions in the top 500 at 96.