Rankings dropped for Taiwan universities in recent international assessment
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
2011-10-07 08:00 PM
The world’s rankings of Taiwan’s four leading national universities --- National Taiwan University (NTU), National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), National Sun Yat-Sen University and National Chiao Tung University --- have all declined in a recent assessment made and published by Times Higher Education (THE) magazine.
Despite good performance in 2010, NTU’s world ranking dropped from 115th in 2010 to 154th in the 2011-2012 THE World University Rankings. National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) tumbled from 105th in 2010 to between 201st and 255th in the new rankings, followed by National Sun Yat-Sen University, which fell from 163rd to between 251st and 275th in the same period. National Chiao Tung University also dropped from 181st in 2010 to between 226th and 250th in 2011.
Some universities that made the 261st-400th cut in 2010 plunged off the charts, including National Cheng Kung University, National Chung Hsing University and National Chung Cheng University.
Universities ranking lower than 200 are not assigned individual rankings, but are presented by range.
The universities might be disappointed with this year’s outcome, but the massive slide in rankings is due to changes made in the assessment procedures and the complicated evaluation process, THE Deputy Editor Phil Baty said.
Competition was also more fierce this year, with a growing number of new universities submitting information for evaluation, Baty added.
Overall, Taiwanese universities’ performances were acceptable, but changes made in assessment weighting put them at a disadvantage, Baty went on.
If Taiwanese universities want to raise their global rankings, they need to improve in the areas of international research by attracting brilliant scholars and international students, employing more foreign staff and training bright Ph.D. students, Baty suggested.
Other areas that need to be better developed include cooperation with top academics and institutes, publishing higher quality research papers and increasing international influence and visibility in the global academic community, he said.
Criteria weighting for 2011 was changed to 30 percent each for teaching, research and citations, international outlook accounted for 7.5 percent and industry outcome at 2.5 percent. More than 17,500 international academics and experts were interviewed when compiling the list.
This is the eighth year THE has conducted its world university rankings.
：
