Hong Kong universities are more than holding their own in Asia

Thomas Barlow says global league tables that show local institutions slipping do not tell the whole story

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A member of a HKU research team demonstrates how to use virtual reality systems for training. The team has developed a VR training system for commercial use. Photo: Chen Xiaomei

Published: 11:27am, 7 Dec 2016Updated: 6:49pm, 7 Dec 2016

A revolution is afoot in the production of knowledge and ideas. The East Asian region now spends more on industrial research and development than either North America or Europe, and the region now matches North America for the number of scientific and scholarly publications produced annually.

These are exciting developments for Asian societies. However, such changes are not yet reflected in university rankings. Fewer than 100 of the top 500 universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities are based in Asia.

Global league tables, which emphasise historical performance and measures with long lead times, such as Nobel Prizes, tend to favour established institutions. Rankings based upon surveys are also susceptible to subjective impressions that often outlast their original justifications. But a shift is under way, which will make it increasingly difficult for Western institutions to maintain their present global standings.

In our latest Asia 100 ranking, we assessed 900 universities across East Asia and Australasia. That’s 400 universities in China, around 200 in Japan, more than 80 in South Korea, more than 70 in Taiwan, 40 in Australia – plus institutions in Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. In our methodology, as in other rankings, we use multiple metrics to measure research performance. However, we do a couple of things differently. For instance, we rank universities in 60 different disciplines rather than using aggregate data, and we rank according to recent, rather than long-term, performance.

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The University of Hong Kong is ranked among the top 20 universities in the region in more than a third of the 60 disciplines analysed. Photo: Reuters

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Our findings are incredibly positive for Hong Kong. Overall, six of our top 100 institutions across the region are situated in this city, and Hong Kong universities lead in several disciplines. For example, City University excels in applied mathematics. We rate Polytechnic University as the top in Asia for research in management. The Chinese University of Hong Kong is very strong in oncology and other clinical sciences. And the University of Hong Kong is ranked among the top 20 universities in the region in more than a third of the 60 disciplines we analysed.