Korea's top universities have moved up in international rankings thanks to the wealth of faculty publications and the regard of international academics.
In the 2011 Asian university rankings by the Chosun Ilbo and Quacquarelli Symonds, Seoul National University ranked sixth, and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) 11th and 12th. They ranked first, second and third in Korea.
KAIST and POSTECH moved up two notches each in the Asian rankings from last year. Yonsei University and Korea University ranked 18th and 26th, up one and three notches. Sungkyunkwan University soared by 16 notches to 27th place. Kyunghee University came 42nd, up 20 notches from last year. Hanyang University and Ewha Womans University moved up five and three notches to 44th and 45th. Chungang University leaped a whopping 36 notches to 93rd to join the top 100.
Overall, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology topped the list, followed by University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, and the University of Tokyo.
But international academics ranked the University of Tokyo first and SNU fifth in Asia. The scores were given by 10,563 academics from around the world based on the question which Asian university stands out most in their own field.
The academic review scores account for 30 percent of the evaluation. Second through fourth were National University of Singapore, Kyoto University, and Peking University. SNU also came fifth in this category last year. This year, Korean universities did significantly better in the arts and humanities. Six Korean universities were among the top 50 last year, swelling to nine this year.
The University of Tokyo finished first in Asia in four of five categories -- arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine and natural sciences. National University of Singapore came in first in social sciences and management. KAIST topped the list of Korean universities in terms of engineering and technology while SNU ranked top in the other four.
The ranking has been conducted by the Chosun Ilbo and QS since 2009. For this year's rankings, a total of 437 universities in 14 countries including Hong Kong were evaluated.
Scores were given based on evaluation in four categories -- research quality (60 percent), teaching quality (20 percent), graduates employability (10 percent), and internationalization (10 percent).
The rankings of Korean universities apparently improved because they scored higher than last year in terms of the assessment by academics. International academics rated Korean universities' research capabilities more highly than in the past, apparently due to increased numbers of outstanding papers.
