Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Seven Taiwanese universities have made it to the top 500 list of the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities released Monday by Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with National Taiwan University (NTU) topping the list of local universities in 163rd place.
In addition to NTU, which moved down from last year's ranking of 154th, the other six local universities are Chinese Medical University at 199th; National Tsing Hua University and Chang Gung University (in the 301-400 range); National Cheng Kung University, National Chiao Tung University and Kaohsiung Medical University (in the 401-500 range).
Harvard University has held the top spot in the annual worldwide ranking since the list began in 2003, while Stanford University remains in second place and the University of California, Berkeley has moved up one place from last year to third.
The University of Cambridge has moved up one place to fourth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has dropped two places to fifth.
The University of Oxford has showed good progress, moving up to seventh from last year's 10th place.
Asia has broken new ground in this year's ranking, with universities in China and Singapore in the top 100 for the first time. Tsinghua University in China is the country's best university in 58th position, while Peking University placed 71st and the National University of Singapore is the country's top entry at the 83rd spot.
Lee Fang-jen (李芳仁), dean of NTU's Office of Research and Development, said that NTU's performance has been relatively stable compared with that of previous years and he attributed the fall in the school's ranking this year to the rapid progress made by universities in other countries.
Meanwhile, China Medical University President Lee Wen-hwa (李文華) expressed satisfaction over the school's strong showing this year, saying that the university has allocated NT$300 million (US$9.58 million) to hire 80 new teachers over the past few years and plans to earmark NT$3 billion to hire more faculty members and purchase more equipment and facilities.
(By Hsu Chih-wei and Evelyn Kao)
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