NTU world university reputation ranking falls for 3rd straight year

London, Feb. 13 (CNA) National Taiwan University (NTU) was ranked in the 126-150 group band in the Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings 2023 released Tuesday, the third consecutive year its ranking has fallen.

In the 2020 rankings, NTU was in 40th place, improving significantly from the 51-60 band the previous year and its best ranking in five years, according to THE data.

However, since then the university's ranking has dropped precipitously, falling into the 61-70 band in 2021 and the 91-100 band in 2022.

The Times Higher Education list does not assign specific rankings to universities ranked outside the top 50.

In 2020, three other Taiwanese universities were also listed in the rankings for the first time -- National Cheng Kung University, National Tsing Hua University, and National Chiao Tung University -- which were ranked in the 151-175 band.

In the 2023 THE report, only NTU made the list of the world's top 200 universities by reputation.

In terms of main performance indicators used in the overall World University Rankings, universities in Taiwan have made improvements in citation impact and international co-authorship since 2018, THE told CNA.

Meanwhile, noting that improving research quality and developing international cooperation help to enhance a university's reputation, THE said there is still ample room for Taiwanese universities to make improvements in these two indicators.

Taiwanese universities have seen their scores in the research and teaching reputation indicators decline slightly since 2021. Despite this, the universities' performance indicator related to patents has been higher than the global average, THE said.

In the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2023, Harvard University was the top-ranked university, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in third place Stanford University. All the top three are in the United States.

The top 10 is rounded out by the United Kingdom's University of Oxford and University of Cambridge; the U.S.' University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University; China's Tsinghua University; the U.S.' Yale University; and The University of Tokyo in Japan.

Harvard University retained its top spot for the 13th consecutive year, while Massachusetts Institute of Technology is second for the eighth year in a row.

The THE World Reputation Rankings lists the globe's top 200 most prestigious universities as judged by academics around the world.

The 2023 survey received responses from a record 38,796 academics from 166 countries/regions.

The academics were asked to name, at most, 15 universities they believe are the best in research and teaching in their field.

The U.S. has the largest number of universities in the top 200 rankings with 52, followed by the U.K. with 20, China 15, Germany 14 and Japan 10.