KUALA LUMPUR: The Times Higher Education (THE) has just released its THE 150 Under 50, a ranking of the world’s top universities under 50 years of age.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, founded in 1969 in Switzerland, takes the top spot, reflecting a European dominance of this forward-looking ranking of young universities.
East Asian institutions take four of the next five places.
These include Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2nd), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (3rd), Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea (5th) and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea (6th).
Times Higher Education rankings editor Phil Baty said: “The 150 Under 50 ranking is led by young, exciting and dynamic institutions — half of the universities in the top 10 are 30 years or under and from nations investing heavily in creating world-class institutions, like Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.
“As the pendulum swings, the traditionally dominant US and UK will have to raise their games to continue to compete in future years.”
Two Malaysian universities are included in the list. They are Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia ranked between 101 to 150.
Professor Bertil Andersson, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) President said, the strong presence of Asian universities at the top shows that they are gaining on their global competitors, and growing in international stature.
“Asia’s young universities are riding high in the rankings because of their countries’ investments in higher education, which has rapidly increased their ability to attract top global talents,” he said.
“NTU has been making good progress and is today recognised internationally for excellence in teaching, research and innovation.”
Last year, THE named NTU the World’s Fastest-Rising Young University.
NTU has also been placed the world’s No. 1 Young University by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) for the last two years running.
Said Baty: “This new data confirms NTU’s status as one of the most exciting — and closely watched — universities in the world. To have achieved so much in just 25 years of existence, while other universities have required centuries of development, is extraordinary.”
In this fifth annual ranking of young universities, the top 16 universities also appear in the Top 200 of the latest THE World University Rankings, which represents the elite one per cent of all universities in the world.
THE 150 Under 50 reveals those nations and regions challenging the traditional dominance of universities located in the US and UK, whose institutions occupy 30 places in the overall ranking.
Of these elite young institutions, 11 are located in Continental Europe and four in East Asia, with one in the UK.
Strikingly, no institutions founded in the past 50 years in North America, Latin America, Africa, Australia or New Zealand have a place in the elite one per cent of global universities.
The Times Higher Education 150 Under 50 is part of the portfolio of rankings and data products that has established THE as the world’s most respected and widely-referenced provider of comparative university performance data.
By contrast, Continental European and Asian institutions account for 95 of those placed in THE 150 Under 50, with a further 20 located in Australia or New Zealand, four in Canada and one in Brazil.
The UK remains the best-represented country in THE 150 Under 50 with 25 institutions ranked, beginning with the University of Dundee (16th).
North America’s highest-placed institution is Rush University of the United States in 22nd place, while Australia’s highest represented is the University of Technology, Sydney, in 21st place.
THE’s 150 Under 50 list uses the same 13 performance indicators found in the overall THE World University Rankings, but with a reduced weighting on academic reputation to reflect the special characteristics of younger universities.
The indicators are grouped together into five categories: teaching (30 per cent), research (30 per cent), citations (30 per cent), international outlook (7.5 per cent) and industry income (2.5 per cent).