Nine local universities have made it into the top 500 universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings, the nation’s best performance in recent years.
The QS ranking evaluates universities’ scores based on peer review, international faculty, international students, faculty, students and citations.
National Taiwan University moved from 95th place last year to 94th, while National Tsing Hua University jumped from 223rd to 196th.
National Cheng Kung University ranked 283rd, while National Yang Ming University came in at 290.
National Chiao Tung University rose from 380 to 327, while National Central University ranked 398th. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology came in at 370th.
National Sun Yat-sen University and National Taiwan Normal University, both of which were included in the top 500 for the first time, ranked somewhere between 400th and 500th place — because QS did not provide detailed rankings in that range.
Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌), dean of academic affairs at National Taiwan University, said the school’s goal was to make it into the top 50.
Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) praised the universities for their achievements and attributed the outcome to the government’s investment of NT$50 billion (US$1.5 billion) in the top universities over the past five years.
Wu vowed to continue to provide funding for the universities.
At a press conference in Longon, Ben Sowter, head of the QS Intelligence Unit, attributed the rise in rankings to the universities’ academic reputations, citations per faculty and the number of international faculty in the ranked universities.
Sowter said Taiwanese universities’ efforts to get more research papers published in international journals, increasing teaching resources and promoting international engagements for faculty were also factors that helped improve their ratings.
Two Chinese schools in Beijing were also listed: Peking University moved up to 47th, while Tsinghua University fell to 54th place.
Meanwhile, Cambridge University beat Harvard University for the first time in seven years to take the No. 1 spot in the rankings.
Yale University placed third. University College London was ranked fourth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came in at No. 5.
John O’Leary, executive member of the QS academic advisory board, blamed a hiring freeze for Harvard losing its top spot.
“Cambridge has gone top because it has improved its citations. Harvard has taken more students and had a hiring freeze amongst its academics. That’s the reason these two have swapped around,” O’Leary said.
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