Sixteen Taiwanese universities have made it into the top 200 of QS 2014 World University Rankings by Subject released on Wednesday by UK-based higher education information provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
National Taiwan University (NTU) was the best performer in the nation with 26 subject categories, the most for any of the Taiwanese universities listed.
Twenty-two of the school’s subjects were included in the top 100 world rankings, with 10 listed in the top 50 and its electrical engineering program credited as the highest-ranked subject in Taiwan at 20th place.
A National Taiwan University spokesman said that the school’s overall performance this year is the best in its history. Finance made it into the top 50 rankings for the first time, highlighting the importance the university attaches to the social sciences and humanities, he said.
National Tsing Hua University and National Taiwan Normal University each had at least one subject listed among the top 50 schools. Tsing Hua’s chemical engineering was ranked 39th, while Taiwan Normal’s education was placed 42nd.
National Chiao Tung University had 10 subjects listed among the top 200 universities in the world, with electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, material science and statistics making the top 100 list.
Taipei Medical University’s medicine program placed 91st on that list.
QS Intelligence Unit head Ben Sowter said that National Taiwan University has moved up to be ranked among top universities in the world, with strong showings in some subjects.
The emergence of universities in Asia has posed strong competition to US and UK academic institutions in the areas of mathematics, engineering and science, Sowter said.
Asian universities account for 10 of the top 30 rankings in the subjects of chemical, civil and electronic engineering, showing that schools in the region are gaining a stronger influence in the world, he said.
Now in its third year, the annual QS World University Rankings by Subject identifies the world’s strongest universities in 30 different subject areas and is an extension of the overall QS World University Rankings. QS evaluated 3,002 universities this year.
The company used six indicators to determine the rankings: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty from SciVerse Scopus, faculty-student ratio, proportion of international students and proportion of international faculty.
The QS Web site says the by-subject rankings are designed to “provide comparative information at discipline level and to highlight the excellence of institutions in specialist areas.”
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on