China’s top universities – Tsinghua University and Peking University - have both climbed several places to sit in 12th and 14th positions of the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. China now has 13 universities in the top 200 – up from seven in 2020 – with each of them improving their ranking significantly. The number of Chinese institutions in the top 400 of the World University Rankings has doubled from just 15 in 2021 to 30 this year.

This is mirrored by continued declines in the number of UK and US institutions in the top 200 (by four and three institutions, respectively, since 2021).

Ming Cheng, professor of higher education at the Sheffield Institute of Education at Sheffield Hallam University, says that although the US and the UK still lead the university rankings, their “relative power is waning”.

“This trend also suggests a shift of knowledge economy power from the West to the East. It will potentially encourage more international students to study in China in the future.”

Chinese universities boosted their average scores in the teaching and research quality pillars, among other areas. Its median research quality score, which includes newly introduced metrics such as research strength, research excellence, and research influence, in addition to citation impact, has improved by 12 percentage points.

This follows soon after the recently released QS World University Rankings 2024, which saw three Australian universities, namely the University of Melbourne, New South Wales, and Sydney, jump up the world rankings and into the top 20 list for the first time. The University of Melbourne was the highest-rated Australian institution at 14th place.

Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/world-uni...

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8250146/top-of-the-world-australi...

What this means for the UK HE sector

The QS and THE World University Rankings for 2024 have shown changes that could have implications for the number of students from China (and the rest of East Asia) attending U.K. institutions from 2024 onwards.

For rank-conscious Chinese students, top-ranked universities are seen as prestigious and offer desirable employment opportunities as well as making it easier for returnees to gain residence in Tier 1 cities through the Hukou system. With China grappling with high youth unemployment of above 20 percent, Australia’s leap in the QS rankings, which was supported by the addition of new metrics such as employment outcomes and the increased weight given to the employer reputation metric, will give the country an added advantage and Chinese students more reason to study there. In addition, Chinese students will be more likely to stay in their home country and study at HEIs that have moved up in the rankings.

Overall, the improvement in the world rankings of Chinese and Australian universities will boost their attraction as study destinations, drawing more international students, particularly from the region, to study in these two countries. UK HEIs will need to work hard to showcase their strengths as well as provide evidence of graduate employability to potential students. At the same time, improvements in China's research quality are a positive development, and UK higher education institutions should be encouraged to pursue selected research opportunities with China.