ASIA: Japan dominates regional rankings

The first ranking of Asian higher education institutions by the British company QS has sparked intense interest across the region. Universities in Hong Kong emerged at the top - the tiny territory has four institutions in the top 20 - while Japan dominates in numbers and quality with nine universities in the first 20 and 33 in the top 100.

Other countries with a strong presence in the QS Asian University Rankings 2009 are South Korea, with 17 institutions in the top 100, and China with 11. The small Singapore island state also does well with two of its universities in the top 20, while Taiwan has nine institutions in the top 100. Seven Indian universities make it to the top 100, followed by Malaysia (5), Thailand (4) and Indonesia and Philippines with three each.

Dominating the QS Asia Top 200 in terms of numbers are Japan with 56, South Korea (46) and China (39). Asia was chosen for the first QS regional exercise because of the strong attention it pays to rankings, the company says. "The narrower the geographic focus of a ranking, the richer the available data can potentially be."

More indicators have been used for Asia than for the global rankings and QS argues that this "is both appropriate and crucial" given that the range of indicators used at the regional level differs from that used globally.

"The objectives of each exercise are slightly different - whilst a global ranking seeks to identify truly world-class universities contributing to the global progress of science, society and scholarship, a regional ranking should adapt to the realities of the region in question."

Top of the Asia list is the University of Hong Kong followed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2), University of Tokyo (3), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (4), Kyoto University (5), Osaka University (6), KAIST - the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (7), Seoul National University (8), Tokyo Institute of Technology (9) and in joint 10th place the National University of Singapore and Peking University.

Interestingly, the University of Tokyo emerged as the strongest in subject rankings - it is top of the list in all five categories of subjects - arts and humanities, life science and biomedicine, natural sciences, social sciences, and IT and engineering.

Other strong performers in the subject rankings were Japan's Kyoto University, the National University of Singapore, Seoul National University and China's Tsinghua University.

The QS Asia ranking has generated significantly different results to the Top 100 Asia Pacific Universities listed last year by its 'rival', the Academic Ranking of World Universities produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Shanghai ranking encompassed more countries - including Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Turkey - than the dozen or so in Asia covered by QS.

Still, in the Shanghai ranking Japanese universities dominated while universities in Hong Kong were clustered in the top 23-41 category, behind the National University of Singapore and South Korea's Seoul National University.

The Shanghai system stresses research performance based on award-winning staff and alumni, citations, articles in the journals Nature and Science and an institution's per capita academic performance, while the QS system places stronger emphasis on peer review and has a broader set of performance indicators.

For the first Asia ranking, the QS methodology focused on four criteria and nine indicators. The first criterion was research quality with three indicators: an Asian academic peer review system (weighted at 30%), papers per faculty (15%) and citations per paper (15%). Thus research quality and output were the primary determinants of an institution's ranking, with a 60% weighting out of a 100% total.

The University of Tokyo topped the peer review, followed by Peking and Kyoto. In papers per faculty, the top performers were South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and Pohang University of Science and Technology, followed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Topping the citations per paper indicator were Japan's Yokohama City University and University of Tokyo, followed by the University of Hong Kong.

The second criterion was teaching quality based on student-faculty ratio and its weighting was 20%. The best performers under this criterion were the College of Medicine at Pochon University in South Korea, and Japan's Showa and Gunma universities.

The third criterion was graduate employability. This was based on an Asian employer review with a survey of employers with experience in recruiting from Asian institutions and it had a 10% weighting. The institutions most rated by employers were the National University of Singapore, Peking University and the University of Tokyo.

The final criterion was internationalisation with a total 10% weighting split into four indicators: international faculty, international students, and inbound and outbound exchange students. The international faculty review placed Hong Kong University of Science and Technology at the top, while the international students review was headed by the National University of Singapore.

QS says on its website that over the next two years the company will "drive these evaluations to a deeper contextual level - focusing on regions, subjects and an interactive online system where enquirers will be able to select their own criteria and apply their own weightings - the objective is to evaluate more universities from more angles for more people".

Asian University Rankings 2009 - Top 20

1- University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
2- The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
3- University of Tokyo, Japan
4- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
5- Kyoto University, Japan
6- Osaka University, Japan
7- KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
8- Seoul National University, South Korea
9- Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
10a- National University of Singapore, Singapore
10b- Peking University, China
12- Nagoya University, Japan
13- Tohoku University, Japan
14- Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
15a- Kyushu University, Japan
15b- Tsinghua University, China
17- Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea
18- City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
19- University of Tsukuba, Japan
20a- Hokkaido University, Japan
20b- Keio University, Japan

Academic peer review

1 -University of Tokyo, Japan
2- Peking University, China
3- Kyoto University, Japan
4- National University of Singapore, Singapore
5- Seoul National University, South Korea

Papers per faculty

1- Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. South Korea
2- Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea
3- Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
4- Tokyo University of Science. Japan
5- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Citations per paper

1- Yokohama City University, Japan
2- University of Tokyo, Japan
3- University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
4- Osaka University, Japan
5- Kyoto University, Japan

Student-Faculty ratio

1- College of Medicine, Pochon Cha University, South Korea
2- Showa University, Japan
3- Gunma University, Japan
4- National Yang Ming University, Taiwan
5- Shinshu University, Japan

Recruiter Review

1- National University of Singapore, Singapore
2- Peking University, China
3- University of Tokyo, Japan
4- Waseda University, Japan
5- Fudan University, China

International Faculty Review

1- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
2- Singapore Management University, Singapore
3- University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
4- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
5- Singapore Institute of Management, Singapore

International Students Review

1- National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
2- Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
3- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
4- Singapore Management University, Singapore
5- University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

karen.macgregor@uw-news.com