National Taiwan University (NTU) remained Taiwan’s top-ranked institution in the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 2025 Asia University Rankings, despite dropping five places from the previous year.
NTU and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, which each earned 85.5 points, were tied for 26th place in the rankings released on Wednesday.
Seven other domestic universities made it into the top 100, including National Tsing Hua University in 39th, National Cheng Kung University in 41st and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in 42nd.
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan University
NTU fell from 21st in the 2024 rankings released last year, marking its first drop after peaking at 19th from the 2021 to 2023 lists.
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, which moved up five places from 47th in the previous rankings, was the only Taiwanese university in the top 50 to make progress.
Its 42nd placing marks the university’s best result in its four-year history.
The other local universities ranked in the top 100 were National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (66th), National Taiwan Normal University (79th), National Sun Yat-sen University (83rd) and National Taipei University of Technology (91st).
NTU scored highest among Taiwanese universities in the “Academic Reputation” and “Employer Reputation” categories, which account for 30 percent and 20 percent of the overall score respectively.
National Tsing Hua University and National Cheng Kung University also ranked in the top 50 in Asia for the two metrics, while National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University ranked in the top 50 for employer reputation.
QS’ 2025 rankings, the 16th edition of the report, featured 984 universities from 25 countries and territories across Asia.
Of the 48 Taiwanese universities on the list, 17 rose in the rankings, 16 fell, 13 remained unchanged and two made their debut.
Taiwanese universities have a strong reputation among employers and academics, but face challenges from regional peers in research output and impact, QS senior vice president Ben Sowter said.
The country’s declining student enrollment, driven by demographic shifts, is also placing additional pressure on many institutions, Sowter said.
The government has increased funding to support students at private universities and invested more in science, technology, engineering and mathematics research, although the effect of the efforts remains to be seen, he said.
Five Taiwanese universities ranked from 101st and 200th: National Central University (112th), National Chung Hsing University (120th), Taipei Medical University (122nd), National Chengchi University (123rd) and National Chung Cheng University (189th).
The top four universities on the list remained unchanged from the previous edition, with Peking University, the University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University continuing to top the list in that order.
Peking University has dominated the rankings for three consecutive years with a perfect score of 100.
Rounding out the top 10 from fifth to 10th were Fudan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University in China, Zhejiang University, Yonsei University in South Korea and the City University of Hong Kong in that order.
With the exception of the City University of Hong Kong, which rose from 17th place last year, the other top nine universities were ranked in the top 10 in the rankings for 2024.
The QS rankings were first issued in 2004 in conjunction with Times Higher Education (THE) before QS and THE parted ways in 2009 and started producing separate university rankings.
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