Six universities in Hong Kong have finished in the top 50 of a closely watched league table in Asia for the first time since 2017, with the city’s two oldest tertiary education institutions ranking among the 10 best in the region.
The 2025 Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings, published on Thursday, saw Baptist University jump to 50th place after finishing 63rd last year.
The city has only had six institutions in Asia’s top 50 in 2016 and 2017, when Baptist University was ranked 44th and 49th, respectively. The university had since fallen to lower positions.
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“Hong Kong demonstrates a strong performance in the 2025 Asia University Rankings with two top 10 institutions – [the] University of Hong Kong holds its place at sixth, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong moves up one place to ninth,” Times Higher Education said.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) retained its position in 12th, while Polytechnic University (PolyU) rose from 19th to 18th.
City University (CityU) was the only one from Hong Kong to fall in the rankings, finishing a place lower in 16th.
Mainland China’s Tsinghua University held onto the top spot for the seventh year in a row, while Peking University retained its second place for the sixth straight year.
The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University kept their third and fourth positions, respectively.
The University of Tokyo held steady at fifth place.
The British magazine on higher education news this year ranked 853 universities from 35 countries or territories, including six from Hong Kong, an increase from the 739 tertiary education institutions from 31 jurisdictions in 2024.
The universities were assessed across five performance areas: teaching; research environment; research quality; international outlook in terms of staff, students and research; and industry in respect of income and patents.
A Baptist University spokeswoman said: “[The university] is delighted to be recognised as one of the top 50 universities in Asia in this ranking and views this as an important reference for its ongoing commitment to excellence in teaching, learning and research standards.”
A spokesman for CityU said the university had achieved the top position in the “industry” indicator with “a perfect score” and ranked first in Hong Kong for “international outlook”.
He added the university had also finished in the top 30 in Asia for three other indicators, which he said underscored its strength in teaching and research.
Last year, four of six public universities in Hong Kong fell in the same table, including HKUST, which lost its place in the top 10 for the first time since the rankings were established in 2013.
Times Higher Education had said that the decline in the rankings experienced by some institutions reflected fierce competition in the region.
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