BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2015 results

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China has cemented its dominance of the Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2015, with more than a quarter of the institutions in the 2015 top 100 located in the country.

In the second annual table, which recognises higher education institutions in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and 17 other “emerging economies”, China has representatives – up from 23 last year. These include Peking University and Tsinghua University, which take first and second place respectively.

The next most represented region, Taiwan, has 19 institutions in the top 100 – two fewer than last year. Conversely, India has increased its representatives from 10 to 11, while Russia has seen dramatic improvement, with seven universities in the top 100, up from just two last year. These include Lomonosov Moscow State University, which rises five places to fifth.

Elsewhere in the top five, Turkey’s Middle East Technical University takes third place (it was ninth last year) while South Africa, with five representatives in the table, sees the University of Cape Town in fourth.

It has been a strong year for Turkey, with three of the top 10 places and eight universities in the top 100 (up from seven last year), mirroring gains made in the annual World University Rankings results.

Phil Baty, THE rankings editor, said this improvement was partly due to the country’s activities with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern). “Turkey has put a lot of effort into this particle physics project, and its universities have gained fantastically from being part of it,” he said. “Beyond specific papers around Cern, we’ve seen significantly increased spending on research in Turkey…[a country that] should be celebrated as an improving nation in higher education.”

Elsewhere, Brazil’s University of São Paulo breaks into the top 10, but only three other universities from the South American nation make the list. There are also top 50 places for institutions in Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Morocco, Poland and Thailand.

“The BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings provide a clear case study of what can be achieved with a comprehensive, coherent policy to develop world-class universities,” Mr Baty said. “The rankings also provide a stark warning of how far some developing economies must still travel before their universities can compete on the world stage.”

The results of the 2015 rankings were unveiled at the inaugural Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Universities Summit, which took place in Moscow this week. It was attended by more than 150 global leaders and representatives from some of the emerging economies’ most prestigious higher education institutions.

chris.parr@tesglobal.com

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