October 23, 2018 11:40
Korean universities improved overall in this year's Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings, though a newly-revised measurement process saw two prominent universities lose ground.
A total of six Korean universities made the top 30, including Seoul National University (10th), Korea University (12th), Sungkyunkwan University (15th) and Yonsei University (17th).
Despite the overall improvement, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) fell to eighth place from fourth, while Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) declined to 24th from 12th.
KAIST ranked second in 2014, but has since been surpassed by a number of Chinese universities. Its current ranking at No. 8 is its lowest since 2012. This is also the first year that POSTECH has failed to make the top 20.
QS attributed KAIST's poor performance to its low score in international research, a newly-added indicator this year measuring the number of joint studies with researchers overseas to gauge the diversity of the school. KAIST only managed 49th place in terms of diversity, the lowest among the top 10 universities. It even ranked behind several low-ranking universities like University of Science, Malaysia (43rd), Chulalongkorn University of Thailand (44th) and COMSATS University Islamabad, formerly known as CIIT (135th). POSTECH was in 85th place.
The National University of Singapore regained the top position after two years, while the University of Hong Kong moved up three notches from fifth to second.
Chinese universities performed particularly well in this year's rankings. Tsinghua University in Beijing came in third, Peking University fifth and Fudan University in Shanghai sixth.
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