As per the recently published Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which was released on Wednesday, September 26 the National University of Singapore (NUS) has slipped to 23rd position, while China's Tsinghua University snatched the title of Asia's top university from NUS.
In 2017, NUS was ranked 27th in the list along with University of Toronto and was holding the title of top Asian University for three consecutive years. It also had a record of being only Asian University to rank above 25 in the list of world universities.
To create the ultimate ranking list via assessing all the universities, 13 indicators were taken into consideration, such as research, international outlook and knowledge transfer to industry. Oxford University claimed the first place for the third time in a row, while Cambridge and Stanford University became the second and third rank holders.
However, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore has improved its position in the list and moved to 51st. In 2017, NTU managed to grab the 52nd position in the ranking list. Among other Asian universities in top 50, while China's Peking University received 31st position, the University of Hong Kong in 36th, The University of Tokyo settled in 42 and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology achieved the 46th position.
The ranking list was published on Wednesday at the World Academic Summit held in Singapore by Times Higher Education magazine. Phil Baty, editorial director of the Times ranking has stated that NUS remains one of the most "innovative and dynamic universities in the world."
"NUS has outstanding scores across all of Times Higher Education's core metrics, but it has one of the highest scores of all universities in the elite world top 30 for international outlook, demonstrating that NUS is a magnet for global talent and a highly sought-after research partner for universities across the world," Baty added.
As per the magazine, while the improvements to its teaching environment helped Tsinghua University to beat NUS, Baty stated that the new ranking showed the strong competition from Chinese universities, as seven universities from that country have ranked in top 200 this year. He also said it should be noted that many of those Chinese universities have achieved a higher position compared to their previous rankings.
Tan Eng Chye, the president of NUS said that he was pleased to see NUS among the names of the leading universities in the world as well as in Asia. He also added that the while the nature of work is changing rapidly, "universities will need to innovate and evolve to effectively respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
