NTU ranked No 3 among world’s top young universities

SINGAPORE – The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was ranked third among the world’s elite young universities for 2017, dropping one position from last year, said the London-based data provider Times Higher Education on Wednesday (April 5).

It announced the rankings of the world’s top universities below the age of 50 at the Young Universities Summit 2017 in Australia.

NTU was the only university from Singapore in the top 10, which was led by Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne for the third year in a row. Universities from Hong Kong, South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy made up the rest of the top 10.

The ranking, published for the sixth year, includes 200 institutions for the first time, expanded from 150 in previous editions. The indicators for ranking the universities are grouped into five categories:  Teaching, research, citations, international outlook, and knowledge transfer.

Although NTU saw its overall score increase over the past year – with improvements in teaching, citations and international outlook categories – Mr Phil Baty, Times Higher Education World University Rankings editor said the university faced “stronger competitors than ever from its near neighbours in the ranking”.

“NTU is a world-class performer and I have no doubt this will spur them on,” he added. “Singapore has a promising future in the Under 50 list in the years to come; while several other countries’ representatives are nearing their 50th anniversary, NTU is just 26 years old.”

NTU president, Professor Bertil Andersson, said: “We are proud to fly the Singapore flag in the top league of the Times Higher Education ranking. NTU has consistently earned our place in these and many other rankings in recent years. These latest results reaffirm NTU’s globally acknowledged strengths in teaching, research and working with our international partners and the industry.”

The accolade comes on the heels of the university’s achievement in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject last month, where it was ranked fourth in the world in Engineering & Technology. It was ranked world’s No 1 young university by QS in the last three consecutive years.

Times Higher Education and QS use different methodologies to rank the world’s best young universities.