The University of Macau (UM) has climbed two places to come in 34th place in the 2025 Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings. The Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), meanwhile, was deemed the 57th best university in the region, up from 58th last year.
The latest rankings were announced in Macao at the THE Asia Universities Summit – which took place in partnership with MUST this week.
More than 850 universities from 35 different territories within the region were assessed for the rankings according to various criteria, including research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
Beijing institutions led the field, with Tsinghua University and Peking University retaining the top two slots. All up, half of the top 10 places went to mainland universities, and two went to Hong Kong institutions – the University of Hong Kong (in 6th place) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (in 9th place). All six of the neighbouring SAR’s universities made THE’s top 50 for the region for the first time since 2017.
[See more: The University of Macau’s new Hengqin campus will open in 2028]
According to THE, this year’s rankings highlight “just how far China has come” in its ability to deliver a world-class education. The UK-based publication pointed to the country’s Double First-Class initiative, a programme granting select institutions special government funding, as one key driver of China’s academic successes over the past decade.
“Without such programmes the China miracle in university science would not have occurred,” Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, told THE.
The summit also conferred a number of awards. Assistant lecturer Ki Sum Samson Wong, from the University of Hong Kong’s Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, won the title of Most Innovative Teacher of the Year.
In terms of THE’s World University Rankings, UM is currently in 180th place (MUST falls in the unranked 251-300th category). While no institutions from China make the top 10, Tsinghua University and Peking University are ranked 12th and 13th respectively.
