No Pakistani university in top 500 Times Higher Education World Rankings 2021

Not a single Pakistani university could be ranked among the first 500 universities in the World University Rankings 2021 released by the Times Higher Education (THE). There are, however, 17 Pakistani varsities in the list of top 2,000 higher education institutions, and of them, the little known Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, beat the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, to grab the first university position in Pakistan, and 510^th all over the world, whereas the Quaid-i-Azam University, which was among the top 500 varsities of the world last year, stood at 575^th position. On the international scene, the ranking, which underlined the shifting strength of higher education and research around the world, saw the UK’s University of Oxford on the top for the fifth consecutive year. Also, the US domination of the top 10 masked wider decline and mainland China's Tsinghua University became the first ever Asian university to stand out among the top 20.

 

University rankings are viewed with a greater interest among the students all over the world because students try to get admission to varsities which enhance their employment chances. Among the ranking institutions, THE World University Rankings are viewed as the most balanced and comprehensive global ranking, with 13 separate performance metrics covering the full range of core activities for research-intensive universities: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. The 2021 ranking examined over 86 million citations across more than 13.6 million research publications and included survey responses from 22,000 scholars globally.

This year’s Rankings edition has 18 countries and regions in the top 100, and 93 represented overall, demonstrating that geopolitical competition in the global knowledge economy is intensifying. Moreover, a record 1,527 institutions qualify for the 2021 edition, a 9% increase from the 2020 rankings when 1,397 institutions qualified.

 

Coming back to Pakistan, the universities have been ranked as:

 

Global Ranking No                        University

 

510                                         Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan

575                                         Quaid-i-Azam University

645                                         COMSATS University Islamabad

809                                         University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

860                                         Government College University Faisalabad

861                                         Government College Women University Faisalabad

898                                         Lahore University of Management Sciences

919                                         National University of Sciences and Technology

939                                         University of Peshawar

1951                                       Bahauddin Zakariya University

1128                                       University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Lahore

1176                                       Government College University Lahore

1207                                       The Islamia University of Bahawalpur

1354                                       PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi

1368                                       University of the Punjab

1391                                       University of Sargodha

1499                                       University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore

 

 

Those who are looking for some international university for their higher education, can view the list of top 10 universities of the world.

 

University Name                                         Country / Region                2021 Rank

 

University of Oxford                                     United Kingdom                   1         

Stanford University                                      United States                        2         

Harvard University                                       United States                        3         

California Institute of Technology                        United States                        4         

Massachusetts Institute of Technology   United States                        5         

University of Cambridge                             United Kingdom                   6         

University of California, Berkeley             United States                        7         

Yale University                                             United States                        8         

Princeton University                                                United States                        9         

University of Chicago                                 United States                        10       

 

The list shows the US is still the higher education leader even though the UK has the biggest success story - the University of Oxford. Last year, the UK had top 20 ranked institutions and of them only five were able to improve their position in the table. Asia is emerging as knowledge power house.

 

US also sees the challenge from Asia affecting its performance. Its universities continue to perform well at the top end of the ranking, commanding the highest number of positions in the overall top 10 (8) since the rankings began, as the University of California, Berkeley, climbs 6 places, from joint 13^th to 7^th. However, 50% of the US’s top 20 performing universities from last year’s ranking fail to maintain their position. Over the past five years, the US has lost 4 positions in the overall top 200 (63 in 2016, 59 in 2021) as competition rises for the top places.

 

What should be the most concerning thing for our education managers is the rise of educational power of China, Iran and India, our three neighbours.

 

The chart speaks volume:

 

Country                     No of Universities on Rankings List

 

China                                       90

India                             62

Iran                               47                                         

Asia’s rise is fronted by mainland China’s Tsinghua University (joint 20^th), which becomes the first Asian university ever to break into the THE World University Rankings top 20 since the current methodology launched in 2011. This achievement is an indicator of the wider positive movements in higher education for mainland China, and the rest of Asia in recent years. Since 2016, mainland China has gained 5 additional places in the top 200 (2 in 2016, 7 in 2021). It has also doubled its representation in the top 100 since last year, gaining 3 additional places (6 in total). Of the 7 universities that achieved a top 200 place in 2020, 85% improved their position in 2021, as mainland China continues to challenge the world’s very best.

In total, there are 16 Asian universities in the top 100, the highest total for Asia since the rankings began. Mainland China’s Fudan University (joint 70^th), Zhejiang University (joint 94^th), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (100^th, and South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) (96^th), all move into the elite group. Of those 16 institutions, 13 of them either improved or maintained their position from last year, demonstrating the rising competition from Asia at the expense of western higher education systems.

 

Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at THE, says:

 

“We have observed the rise of Asia in the world rankings for several years now, but this year marks a major milestone, as mainland China’s Tsinghua University disrupts the traditional domination of western universities at the top of the table, breaking into the top 20 for the first time, and as mainland China doubles its representation in the top 100.

 

“This new ranking provides further clear evidence of a shift in the balance of power in the global knowledge economy from the established higher education systems in the west to those in parts of the east. This trend is likely to accelerate further as the coronavirus pandemic heralds a perfect storm of huge challenges for primarily western universities, particularly those in the US and UK, who face the very real risk of losing significant  international student talent, and the billions of dollars in fees that they bring. In the longer term, possibly permanent shifts in the global flow of academic talent that has traditionally fuelled the elite institutions of the US and UK could create real challenges.

 

While the universities at the very top of the table, with long histories of success and prestige, will prove hard to unseat, these factors, combined with the effects of a possible deep and long-lasting global recession and its likely impact on university funding levels, could herald the start a dramatic re-balancing of the global knowledge economy.”

 

 

View the full THE World University Rankings 2021:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2021/world-ranking

 

View the full THE World University Rankings 2021 methodology:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/world-university-rankings-2021-methodology

 

 

1.    Summary Results and Tables

 

 

Top 200

Rank	University Name	Country / Region
1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	Stanford University	United States
3	Harvard University	United States
4	California Institute of Technology	United States
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
7	University of California, Berkeley	United States
8	Yale University	United States
9	Princeton University	United States
10	University of Chicago	United States
11	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
12	Johns Hopkins University	United States
13	University of Pennsylvania	United States
14	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
15	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
16	UCL	United Kingdom
17	Columbia University	United States
18	University of Toronto	Canada
19	Cornell University	United States
=20	Tsinghua University	China
=20	Duke University	United States
22	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
23	Peking University	China
24	Northwestern University	United States
25	National University of Singapore	Singapore
26	New York University	United States
27	London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom
28	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
29	University of Washington	United States
30	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
31	University of Melbourne	Australia
32	LMU Munich	Germany
33	University of California, San Diego	United States
34	University of British Columbia	Canada
35	King’s College London	United Kingdom
=36	Karolinska Institute	Sweden
=36	The University of Tokyo	Japan
38	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
39	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
40	McGill University	Canada
41	Technical University of Munich	Germany
42	Heidelberg University	Germany
43	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
44	University of Texas at Austin	United States
45	KU Leuven	Belgium
46	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
47	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
48	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
49	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
50	Washington University in St Louis	United States
=51	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
=51	University of Sydney	Australia
53	University of Southern California	United States
=54	Kyoto University	Japan
=54	Boston University	United States
=56	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=56	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
=56	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
59	Australian National University	Australia
60	Seoul National University	South Korea
61	Brown University	United States
=62	The University of Queensland	Australia
=62	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
=64	University of California, Davis	United States
=64	Monash University	Australia
66	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
67	UNSW Sydney	Australia
68	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
69	McMaster University	Canada
=70	Fudan University	China
=70	Leiden University	Netherlands
72	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
=73	University of Montreal	Canada
=73	University of Zurich	Switzerland
=75	Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin	Germany
=75	Utrecht University	Netherlands
77	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
=78	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
=78	University of Tübingen	Germany
=80	University of Groningen	Netherlands
=80	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
=80	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
83	University of Freiburg	Germany
84	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
=85	Emory University	United States
=85	University of Minnesota	United States
=87	École Polytechnique	France
=87	University of Science and Technology of China	China
=87	Sorbonne University	France
90	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
91	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
=92	University of Basel	Switzerland
=92	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
=94	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
=94	Zhejiang University	China
96	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
97	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
=98	University of California, Irvine	United States
=98	University of Helsinki	Finland
100	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
=101	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
=101	Dartmouth College	United States
=103	Ghent University	Belgium
=103	Lund University	Sweden
105	Michigan State University	United States
106	Aarhus University	Denmark
=107	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
=107	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
109	University of Bern	Switzerland
110	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
=111	Nanjing University	China
=111	Uppsala University	Sweden
=111	Vanderbilt University	United States
=114	University of Bonn	Germany
=114	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
116	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
117	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
=118	University of Adelaide	Australia
=118	Free University of Berlin	Germany
120	Georgetown University	United States
=121	Maastricht University	Netherlands
=121	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
=121	Case Western Reserve University	United States
=124	Rice University	United States
=124	University of Arizona	United States
126	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=127	University of Oslo	Norway
=127	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
129	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
130	University of Göttingen	Germany
=131	University of Alberta	Canada
=131	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
=133	University of York	United Kingdom
=133	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States
135	University of Hamburg	Germany
=136	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
=136	University of Paris	France
=136	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
139	The University of Western Australia	Australia
=140	University of Mannheim	Germany
=140	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
=140	Ulm University	Germany
=140	University of Würzburg	Germany
=140	Indiana University	United States
=145	University of Cologne	Germany
=145	University of Ottawa	Canada
=147	University of Rochester	United States
=147	University of Auckland	New Zealand
=149	Durham University	United Kingdom
=149	University of Geneva	Switzerland
151	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
=152	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain
=152	TU Dresden	Germany
=152	University of Florida	United States
=155	University of Cape Town	South Africa
=155	Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
=155	Tufts University	United States
=158	Bielefeld University	Germany
=158	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
=160	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
=160	University of Sussex	United Kingdom
=160	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
163	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
=164	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
=164	University of Vienna	Austria
166	Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States
=167	University of Bologna	Italy
=167	Korea University	South Korea
169	University of Alabama at Birmingham	United States
=170	University of Notre Dame	United States
=170	University of Antwerp	Belgium
=170	University of Leicester	United Kingdom
=170	Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy
=174	University of Exeter	United Kingdom
=174	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russian Federation
=176	Northeastern University	United States
=176	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)	South Korea
=178	University of Aberdeen	United Kingdom
=178	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
=178	Paris-Saclay University	France
181	Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa	Italy
182	Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain
183	Stockholm University	Sweden
=184	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
=184	University of Canberra	Australia
186	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
=187	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
=187	George Washington University	United States
=187	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
=187	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
=191	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
=191	University of Gothenburg	Sweden
=191	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
=191	Tel Aviv University	Israel
=195	Macquarie University	Australia
=195	University of Münster	Germany
197	Texas A&M University	United States
=198	University of Barcelona	Spain
=198	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
=200	University of Calgary	Canada
=200	University of East Anglia	United Kingdom
=200	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom

Table source: THE