Mainland China has increased its dominance in Times Higher Education’s latest ranking focused on developing countries, but South Africa and Saudi Arabia outshine the country based on average performance.
The People’s Republic claims 14 places in the top 30 of the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2020, up from 12 last year, including all of the top four places. Tsinghua University remains number one, while Peking University is second, Zhejiang University is third and the University of Science and Technology of China is fourth.
Russia, Taiwan and South Africa are the only other territories that feature in the top 10.
Mainland China is also the most-represented nation overall, with 81 institutions, against India’s 56 and Brazil’s 46.
The Emerging Economies University Rankings includes only institutions in countries classified by the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE Group?as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier”.
However, South Africa is the top performer based on countries’ average overall score among institutions in the top 200. The African country achieves an average score of 41.3 out of 100, while Saudi Arabia, which joined the ranking for the first time after gaining “secondary emerging” status in the FTSE list last year, is second with a score of 40.3. Mainland China is third with a score of 39.3. Only institutions with at least five universities were included in the analysis.
Saudi Arabia is also home to the top new entrant in the table – King Abdulaziz University at 13th place.
Elsewhere, Brazil?continues?to decline in the ranking this year, although its flagship University of S?o Paulo bucks the trend, claiming 14th place (up from 15th last year).
The Emerging Economies University Rankings is based on the same 13 performance indicators used for the THE World University Rankings, but the weightings are different to reflect the development priorities of universities in emerging economies.
Overall, 533 universities from 47 countries or regions are included in the ranking.
ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com
Emerging Economies University Rankings 2020: top 10
| Emerging Economies rank 2020 | Emerging Economies rank 2019 | Position in World University Rankings 2020 | Institution | Country/region | Overall score |
| 1 | 1 | 23 | Tsinghua University | China | 83.8 |
| 2 | 2 | 24 | Peking University | China | 83.0 |
| 3 | 3 | =107 | Zhejiang University | China | 65.5 |
| 4 | 4 | =80 | University of Science and Technology of China | China | 63.3 |
| 5 | 5 | =189 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russian Federation | 61.2 |
| 6 | 8 | =157 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | China | 60.8 |
| 7 | 6 | 109 | Fudan University | China | 60.1 |
| 8 | 10 | =120 | National Taiwan University | Taiwan | 59.4 |
| 9 | 7 | =144 | Nanjing University | China | 58.2 |
| 10 | 9 | =136 | University of Cape Town | South Africa | 57.6 |
