The World’s Best Young Universities

Asian universities dominate the 2015 QS Top 50 under 50, released on TopUniversities.com. The rankings, which reveal the best universities in the world under 50 years old, see universities from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea taking the top six spots. Half of these are from Hong Kong. Nanyang Technological University retains the global top spot, followed by HKUST and KAIST.

NTU President Professor Bertil Andersson said: «Getting first place for the second year running is fantastic news not only for NTU, but also for Singapore which celebrates its Golden Jubilee this year. NTU’s good performance is a tribute to the quality of our faculty, staff and students and I hope a huge encouragement to other young universities in the world that being young should not stand in the way of making an impact on a global scale».

The University of Bath is the best-performing European university. The last top-10 spots are also taken by European universities: Maastricht University, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.

1. Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
2. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
3. KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
4. City University of Hong Kong
5. Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)
6. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
7. University of Bath
8. Maastricht University
9. Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
10. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

Europe has 24 top-50 universities; Asia has thirteen. Australia is the most-featured country in this ranking, with eight universities. The United Kingdom and Spain both have five. Asia’s strength is highlighted by three Taiwanese universities coming in the top 50. Other top young UK universities include Loughborough University (16^th), Heriot-Watt (32^nd), and Brunel University (37^th). Latin America’s top young university is Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), which comes 11 .

The Next 50 under 50 Universities have been included in the published ranking. This has allowed yet-greater representation of universities whose performances in teaching and research are increasingly noteworthy. It sees placed universities from countries as diverse as the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Norway, and Turkey. This adds another layer of depth to the global university performance picture.