Sixteen Taiwanese universities have made it into the top 200 of QS 2014 World University Rankings by Subject released on Wednesday by UK-based higher education information provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
National Taiwan University (NTU) was the best performer in the nation with 26 subject categories, the most for any of the Taiwanese universities listed.
Twenty-two of the school’s subjects were included in the top 100 world rankings, with 10 listed in the top 50 and its electrical engineering program credited as the highest-ranked subject in Taiwan at 20th place.
A National Taiwan University spokesman said that the school’s overall performance this year is the best in its history. Finance made it into the top 50 rankings for the first time, highlighting the importance the university attaches to the social sciences and humanities, he said.
National Tsing Hua University and National Taiwan Normal University each had at least one subject listed among the top 50 schools. Tsing Hua’s chemical engineering was ranked 39th, while Taiwan Normal’s education was placed 42nd.
National Chiao Tung University had 10 subjects listed among the top 200 universities in the world, with electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, material science and statistics making the top 100 list.
Taipei Medical University’s medicine program placed 91st on that list.
QS Intelligence Unit head Ben Sowter said that National Taiwan University has moved up to be ranked among top universities in the world, with strong showings in some subjects.
The emergence of universities in Asia has posed strong competition to US and UK academic institutions in the areas of mathematics, engineering and science, Sowter said.
Asian universities account for 10 of the top 30 rankings in the subjects of chemical, civil and electronic engineering, showing that schools in the region are gaining a stronger influence in the world, he said.
Now in its third year, the annual QS World University Rankings by Subject identifies the world’s strongest universities in 30 different subject areas and is an extension of the overall QS World University Rankings. QS evaluated 3,002 universities this year.
The company used six indicators to determine the rankings: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty from SciVerse Scopus, faculty-student ratio, proportion of international students and proportion of international faculty.
The QS Web site says the by-subject rankings are designed to “provide comparative information at discipline level and to highlight the excellence of institutions in specialist areas.”
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