Browse the full results of the Asia University Rankings 2025

The strength of Chinese universities continues to grow, with 25 of the country’s institutions achieving their best ever position in this year’s ����Vlog Asia University Rankings. Their stellar performance is undeniable: Tsinghua University retained its place as Asia’s best university, followed by Peking University. In total, mainland Chinese institutions accounted for five of the region’s top 10.

They were accompanied by Singapore’s National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University in third and fourth place respectively; The University of Tokyo in fifth place; and the University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong in sixth and ninth place.��

Overall, the top 10 remained mostly the same as last year, with only China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University falling from seventh to 10th place, slightly pushing up those in between.

Asia University Rankings 2025: top 10 

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Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea’s best performing institution, came in at number 15, down one place from last year. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals was ranked 31st, up from 37th last year, while the United Arab Emirates’ Khalifa University is in 37th position, up from 40th in 2024.

This year’s rankings highlight just how far China has come, spurred on by the country’s Double First-Class initiative. The programme was launched in 2015, with 137 universities qualifying for the scheme two years later, of which 42 were identified as potential “world-class” universities. Since then, China has poured 167 billion yuan (£18 billion) of funding into these institutions – a move that appears to be paying off.��

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Analysis of Chinese institutions’ performance in the Asia rankings shows that, since a new methodology was introduced for the 2024 edition to better reflect research performance, China’s Double First-Class universities have been improving at a much faster rate than the rest. Before 2023, they were all improving at a similar rate (see graph below).��

“The gap between the two groups was fairly consistent up to 2022, but by 2024 it almost doubled,” said Billy Wong, THE’s principal data scientist.

How excellence programmes influence universities’ performance

The Double First-Class initiative is the latest in a series of policies aimed at strengthening a select group of Chinese institutions. Before this current phase were the 211 and 985 programmes, which stretch back to the 1990s. “Without such programmes the China miracle in university science would not have occurred,” said Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford.��

It is a strategy that other Asian countries have attempted to follow, albeit with arguably less success. India launched the Institutes of Eminence (IoE) scheme in 2018, an excellence initiative that aimed to elevate a small group of public and private universities.

However, the scheme was fraught with difficulties from the start and, eight years on, critics are sceptical about the benefits to the 12 universities selected for the programme – particularly given that only public institutions are eligible for additional cash. Funding for the scheme fell 74 per cent in the country’s latest budget, suggesting that the government’s focus may be elsewhere.��

Overall, 14 Indian universities improved their position in this year’s Asia ranking, while 34 performed worse. The country’s best-performing university was the Indian Institute of Science, which came in at joint 38th, down from 32nd last year. Of the five IoEs included in THE’s rankings, two dropped down the table this year compared with 2024, two remained in the same position and one improved (the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, now ranked in the 201-250 band).

Some of the universities included in Japan's Top Global University Project, which ran from 2014 to 2023, appear to have fared better. The scheme saw 37 universities awarded additional funding, specifically focusing on improving internationalisation. Of these, it was hoped that 13 “Type A” research-focused institutions would reach the top 100 in global rankings, while the remaining “Type B” universities were expected to become more global in nature.��

Analysis shows that, since 2016, Type A universities have improved significantly in THE's rankings, while Type B have steadily declined at a similar rate to Japanese institutions not included in the programme (see graph above). This may, in part, be due to the different levels of funding granted to each group: Type A received about ¥500 million (£2.6 million) annually, while Type B were given between ¥200 million and ¥300 million.

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Only one Japanese university, the University of Tokyo, made it into the top 10 in this year's Asia rankings, followed by Kyoto University in 13th place. While these two institutions maintained their positions, Tohoku University dropped down one place to 21st position. These were followed by the University of Osaka in joint 27th place, up from 28th last year, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology in joint 32nd place, down from 29th last year.

As the nine-year-long Top Global University Project came to a close, Japan also launched a ¥10 trillion excellence programme in 2022. So far only one institution – Tohoku University – has been selected to participate. The University of Tokyo, Japan’s long-time leader in the Asia and World University Rankings, applied for the scheme but failed to make the cut, leaving some wondering whether the requirements had been set too high.

“While some countries, like Japan and India, have launched their own excellence programmes, they haven’t achieved the same level of success as China,” said Futao Huang, professor at Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for ����Vlog.��

“This is largely due to a decrease in their young researchers, reduced public funding for their national sectors, lower levels of internationalisation in their institutions, less consistent funding, weaker policy coordination and limited integration of national strategies with institutional goals.” 

China has succeeded where others have struggled, it seems, thanks to consistency in terms of both policy and financing. Analysis shows that Tsinghua University, China’s top institution, receives funding (from both the government and other sources) that far exceeds that of neighbouring national champions.��

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Research income per academic staff member (adjusted for PPP)

Figures from the new Asia ranking show that research income per academic staff member (adjusted for purchasing power parity) was US$955,000 (£756,000) at Tsinghua in 2022. In comparison, South Korea’s SNU received $762,000, while Singapore’s NUS received $735,000 (see graph above).��

Longer term, Tsinghua has also seen a bigger increase in its research income from all sources than the other institutions, rising 120 per cent over the previous nine years. NUS’ increased 115 per cent, while SNU’s went up 105 per cent.

The Indian Institute of Science, in comparison, saw its funding drop 21 per cent over the same period, despite being granted IoE status in that time.��

Huang continued: “China’s long-term, stable financial support and clear national priorities under initiatives like the Double First-Class university programme have been crucial to its success.”

However, a common concern about schemes like the Double First-Class initiative is whether investing so heavily in a small group of elite institutions hinders the progress of the rest.��

If middle- and lower-tier institutions are “impoverished” as a result of such excellence initiatives, “so that teaching and learning are weak and research almost non-existent, the strategy may be counterproductive overall”, said Marginson.��

It is this worry that has led Taiwan to take a divergent path. The island’s Academic Excellence Initiative was launched in 2005 and has been through many iterations since. By the mid 2010s, the government faced a backlash from the institutions that were not part of the scheme, according to Angela Yung-Chi Hou, professor of higher education at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.��

After 2016, a new ruling party meant a change in national priorities and a new “egalitarian approach” to universities, said Hou. Unlike before, all of Taiwan’s universities became eligible to apply for excellence funding under the ����Vlog Sprout Project. While other initiatives were introduced to support research-intensive institutions, “in reality, only a few selected top universities are eligible under this complementary project”, according to Hou’s .��

National Taiwan University (NTU) was Taiwan’s top-performing institution in this year’s Asia ranking, in 30th place, down from 26th last year. In total, 47 of Taiwan’s institutions appeared in the table.��

After such a significant policy change under the new government, Taiwan's “ranking declined very, very obviously”, Hou said, supporting the idea that, in order to be world-class, favourable governance is needed.

For policymakers, this creates a difficult choice – invest heavily in the top for impactful results or spread funding more thinly in an arguably more equitable approach.

Analysts believe China is unlikely to stray from its current path. “Government documents consistently emphasise the long-term strategic importance of these universities, and continued financial support is clearly indicated as a priority,” said Huang.��

The key question will be whether the superpower can continue to invest so heavily in universities, given the country’s economic downturn and an ageing population.

“No one knows the future so any answer is a guess. All that we can say is that, at present, there’s no sign of a slackening of national support for increasing investments in higher education, leading universities and research in science and technology,” said Marginson.

Given how heavily science and technology investment features in China’s national goals, he added, it seems unlikely the country will step away from its excellence strategy “unless there is no choice”.��

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helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com