Young University Rankings 2022: of origins and ambitions

View the THE Young University Rankings 2022 results

The institutions in our Young University Rankings are united by their recent foundation dates; only universities that are aged 50 years and under are included in the annual list of the world’s top newcomers in higher education. But the stories and circumstances around their creations are very different.

There are universities that were established in response to growing demand for higher education in rapidly developing industrial cities, such as the 10-year-old Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in China.

Others are the result of mergers and consortia of institutions with older histories; this is most notably the case in France, where there has been a government drive to create several “mega universities” that will be more visible on the global stage (see analysis).

Then there are institutions that already seem to be such an established part of the global higher education landscape – for example, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore or The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – that it is hard to believe that they are only three decades old.

The results of our Young University Rankings 2022 suggest that there is not one route to success for newer institutions; universities with all types of foundation histories and visions, operating in all kinds of contexts, feature at the top of the list, while almost all regions of the world have young universities that are making progress (see graphics).

But global shifts are taking place. On the one hand, Asia is becoming a more prominent region in the ranking, with India and Turkey now leading the list in terms of representation. On the other, it is the first time an institution in the continent has not led the ranking since 2017; this spot is now taken by one of France’s collegiate universities.

Despite the diverse list, there is another factor that appears to connect many young universities: their ambition and ability to do things differently. The president of Université de l’Ontario français, a new francophone university in Canada, explains how the institution is taking a transdisciplinary and experiential approach to teaching, while the leader of Maastricht University reveals how she is recognising talent beyond research.

It is this willingness to innovate and challenge the status quo that makes our ranking of the world’s top young universities something truly worth celebrating.

Countries/regions represented in the THE Young University Rankings 2022

Note: excludes countries with only one ranked institution

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com