Hebrew University and TAU in Times Higher Education Asia top 20

These are the fourth annual Asia University Rankings by the Times Higher Education which ranks the top 200 institutions in Asia.

By LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
Updated: JUNE 21, 2016 00:05
The Hebrew University (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Hebrew University
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Two Israeli universities – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University – ranked in the top 20 of the 2016 Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings released on Monday.
The Hebrew University ranked 17th in Asia, up eight spots from last year, making it the highest-rated Israeli university in the new Asia rankings, while Tel Aviv University ranked 20th. The Technion– Israel Institute of Technology came in 36th, Bar-Ilan University placed 67th, Ben–Gurion University of the Negev was 79th, and Haifa University rated 87th.
“To emerge as Israel’s number one university and 17th across the entire continent of Asia is a major achievement and something to be celebrated,” said Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education Rankings.
“Hebrew University has shown particular strength in research impact – our analysis demonstrates that its research is pushing the boundaries of knowledge and is being cited globally.”
These are the fourth annual Asia University Rankings by the Times Higher Education, which ranks the top 200 institutions in Asia based on the same “rigorous criteria as The World University Rankings – but with special modifications to better reflect the characteristics of Asia’s universities.”
The rankings judge universities based on 13 separate performance indicators across all areas including teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
The National University of Singapore was ranked first, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore along with Peking University in China tied for second.
“There is a reason why Asia is so often predicted to be the next world higher education super power – because all the evidence suggests it is true,” said Baty. “In my 20 years of working in the higher education sector, including seven years as editor of Times Higher Education’s gold-standard global rankings, it has never been as clear to me that the balance of power is shifting from the West to the East.”
Israeli universities have also started to look East in recent years for new academic collaborations.
The Technion remains poised to open the first Israeli higher academic institution in China: Guangdong Technion- Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) in Shantou, in the Guangdong province in southeastern China.
Ben–Gurion University of the Negev and Jilin University (JLU), the biggest university in China, also signed an agreement recently to establish a joint center for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Tel Aviv University and the Tsinghua University in Beijing announced the establishment of the XIN Research Center, a $300 million joint center for innovative scientific research and education.
Haifa University and the East China Normal University in Shanghai also recently signed an agreement to establish the ECNU-UH Translational Science and Technology Joint Research Institute.