New league table aims to spot the rising stars of the worldwide academy. John Morgan reports
The Republic of Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology has topped the primary Times Higher Education ranking of the a hundred best universities underneath the age of fifty, leading a powerful showing for East Asian universities.
The THE a hundred underneath fifty aims to point out that nations are difficult the US and also the UK as higher education powerhouses - and offers insights into that establishments is also future world leaders.
The list uses an equivalent thirteen performance indicators because the the globe University Rankings, however with a reduced weighting for subjective indicators of educational name.
East Asian nations contribute six establishments to the highest twenty, with Pohang (known as Postech) at much loved, followed by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (third), the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (fifth), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (12th), Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (16th) and also the town University of Hong Kong (18th).
Postech, founded simply twenty six years ago, has benefited from investment by Posco, one amongst the world's largest steel corporations - and support from the Republic of Korea's government throughout a time when the state was finishing its fast transformation into a complicated industrial and technological economy.
The UK takes 5 places within the prime 20: the University of York (eighth), Lancaster University (ninth), the University of East Anglia (10th), the University of Warwick (13th) and also the University of Essex (20th).
The UK has a lot of establishments within the a hundred underneath fifty than the other nation, with twenty representatives.
Academic 'diasporas'
Writing in THE's supplement to accompany the rankings, Jamil Salmi, former tertiary education coordinator at the globe Bank, notes that the creation of recent universities with world ambitions is a very important trend in higher education, citing notable ventures in rising economies like Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia.
He argues that it "may be easier to succeed in world-class standing by establishing a replacement establishment than by making an attempt to upgrade an existing one".
Dr Salmi identifies the employment of educational "diasporas" as key to the success of some newer East Asian establishments.
"As Postech and HKUST have shown, convincing massive numbers of overseas students to come back to their country of origin is a good method of increase the educational strength of an establishment rapidly," he says.
Additional factors he identifies as keys to success within the ranking embrace the employment of English because the main operating language - a key consider attracting leading foreign teachers - and concentration on niche areas like the sciences and engineering, enabling the fast achievement of important mass in analysis.
In terms of the UK's leading young establishments, Laurie Taylor, emeritus professor of sociology at York, writes within the supplement that his university created a way that it absolutely was "trying to try and do things differently" through its self-contained campus, school structure and stress on interdisciplinary collaboration.
