Two Beijing universities took the top two places in Asia for the first time in the world university rankings 2020 released by Times Higher Education (THE) on September 11. The poll includes almost 1400 universities across 92 countries, and the table is based on 13 calibrated performance indicators to provide an overall comprehensive comparison of different institutions.

Tsinghua University is at 23^rd place in the world’s top 100 universities, a slight decline from its 22^nd position last year. Peking University made a considerable jump to 24^th from its previous ranking of 31^st. Five other universities from the Chinese mainland made the top 200, namely University of Science and Technology of China, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the same number as in 2019.

Meanwhile, on the poll, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology fell from 41^st to 47^th place, while Chinese University of Hong Kong fell to 57^th from 53^rd last year. The National Taiwan University was also ranked lower this year, in 120th place. Last year’s top Asian institution was the National University of Singapore, and it placed 25th this year compared to 23^rd in the previous poll.

Once again, the UK and US universities dominated all top ten places this year, while Canadian universities and some European universities have risen up.

The Paper notes that this year’s top universities in mainland China scored higher in citation power and research income, perhaps reflecting the Chinese government’s continued investment in higher education.

As we blogged before, China is gearing up towards expanding its pool of international students as well. In 2015, Vice Premier Liu Yandong stated that the government planned to increase the number of international students in China to 500,000 by the end of 2020. The country’s universities have continued to extend their influence and presence on the world stage.

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