National Taiwan University’s (NTU) global reputation ranking has slipped for the third consecutive year, according to the results of a survey announced on Wednesday by British magazine Times Higher Education.
Harvard University had the best reputation among the world’s universities for the sixth straight year.
The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, a spin-off of its annual World University Rankings, are based on an invitation-only survey of more than 10,000 academics from 133 nations.
NTU was ranked in the 51st-to-60th band in 2013, but has since slipped. The ranking this year was in the 81st-to-90th band, the same as in 2012, the first year the survey was published.
NTU was still the only Taiwanese university to make the top 100.
The top 10 schools in the survey were all from the US and the UK. Seventeen universities in Asia also made it into the top 100 this year, seven more than last year.
The University of Tokyo was the best in Asia, ranking 12th, the same as last year.
Two Chinese universities saw their rankings climb: Tsinghua University’s ranking improved eight places from 26th to 18th, while Peking University’s ranking improved from 32nd to 21st.
Times Higher Education editor Phil Baty said that Taiwan is facing major challenges, as nations in Asia and other regions promote higher education with large-scale investments and improved courses.
However, he added that it is very difficult to reach the top 100, as it represents the top 0.5 percent of universities in the world.
Following Harvard University in the top 10 were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley.
Rounding out the top 10 were Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University and the California Institute of Technology.
NTU’s Office of Research and Development dean Lee Fang-jen (李芳仁) said the fall sent “a warning signal about a slip in the nation’s competitive edge,” and attributed it to a continuing decline in investment in higher education.
Lee said Tsinghua and Peking universities’ rankings jumped because China has invested heavily in higher education, whereas NTU’s funding under a government project to make it a top-notch school has continued to decline.
Fewer students studying for masters and doctorate degrees is also one of the reasons for the school’s lackluster performance in the rankings, Lee said.
NTU vice president Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said that government funding has dropped for the fourth straight years to NT$1.6 billion (US$49.4 million) from NT$3 billion.
Due to limited funding, the school has to consider how to use the money effectively, Chen said, adding that in the past it has focused on social education and has been unable to increase its funding for international exchanges.
Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said that it is necessary to continue to invest more in higher education.
The government needs to provide more resources for the development of the nation’s higher education institutions, he said.
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