- Only PolyU holds on to an unchanged position at 65th, the first time it has outstripped City University, which fell from 54th place to 70th
- HKU, highest-ranking university in city, falls five places to 26th, while Chinese University slips nine places to 47th
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology dropped 20 places to the 60th spot in a global survey of universities. Photo: Dickson LeeSix of seven publicly funded Hong Kong universities included in a global rating survey have dropped down the table, with international research and student employability after graduation among the reasons cited for the falls.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) dropped 20 places to 60th, it was announced on Wednesday, the institution’s worst performance since the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings was launched 12 years ago.
It was also the first time the Sai Kung-based university has dropped out of the top 50.
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) fell five spots from last year to 26th in the world and Chinese University slid nine places to 47th.
Only Polytechnic University held on to its 65th position from last year. It was also the first time the institution has outstripped City University, which dropped from 54th to 70th.
Baptist University slid from 281st place to 295th and Lingnan University dropped out of the 601st to 650th range to 641st to 650th, its worst ranking in more than a decade.
Scores for the international research network metric for the seven universities dropped by 24 to 95 per cent compared with last year.
The indicator measures the ability of institutions to diversify their research networks through collaboration with overseas universities.
QS said while Hong Kong had been recognised for its world-class research published in high-impact journals, the city performed relatively poorly when it came to international collaboration.
“In international research network, no Hong Kong universities are among the world’s top 300,” it said, adding even HKU, the city’s top university, only placed 355th.
“Currently, around 20 per cent of the world’s research is done as a result of international collaboration. While Hong Kong conducts a massive 74 per cent of its research alongside international partners, just under three quarters of this is with China, highlighting the importance of a diverse and globalised research agenda,” it added.
The Britain-based education information firm also said Hong Kong should take comfort in the fact that the global academic community now regarded its higher education sector highly once again, following a dip in the reputation of the city’s tertiary institutions earlier due to “sociopolitical friction”.
All the universities saw a drop in the “employer reputation” metric compared with last year, with the decline ranging from 1 to almost 40 per cent according to the survey results gathered from thousands of employers around the world.
“Hong Kong appears to struggle in translating its academic excellence to the job market. For employer reputation, the top performer is HKU which places 159th,” it said.
HKUST’s spokeswoman said rankings went up and down because of a variety of factors.
“HKUST will take them as useful references to learn more about our and other universities’ performance and identify areas for improvement,” she added.
A Chinese University spokeswoman said the global higher education sector was still recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which had affected a range of factors, including the mobility of students from outside the city and international recruitment of academics.
But she added: “Chinese University is now experiencing a strong recovery in non-local student demand and is ramping up its efforts to recruit talented scholars from around the world.”
A HKU spokesman said the university remained steadfast in its commitment to delivering exceptional education for its students, with a relentless pursuit of excellence in teaching, research and knowledge exchange.
The Education University of Hong Kong was not included in the survey.
The 2024 results were announced by Quacquarelli Symonds which rated 1,500 tertiary institutions around the world.
The ratings were partly based on the analysis of about 17.5 million academic papers and the opinions of more than 240,000 academics and employers.
A total of nine areas were assessed, including academic reputation, reputation among employers, academic staff to student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, international student ratio, sustainability, employment figures and international research network.
The last three indicators were new this year and each represents 5 per cent of the weighting. They served only as references last year.
Should the Hong Kong government provide free early education or free university?
Alexa Chow Yee-ping, the managing director of recruitment agency ACTS Consulting, said university education had been hit in recent years by the 2019 social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic, where classes may have been skipped and instruction was switched to online.
“Some employers even asked me whether the graduates ever seriously studied before graduation as they felt the new graduates fared badly when compared to graduates in previous years,” she said.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology remained the top-ranked university for the 12th year in a row, followed by Cambridge University, which held on to its second place position from last year.
Oxford University and Harvard University each inched up a spot to third and fourth respectively. Stanford University dropped from third place to fifth.
The National University of Singapore was the top institution in Asia and went up from 11th to eighth position.
In mainland China, Peking University dropped five spots to 17th and Tsinghua University slid from 14th to 25th.