Investment Immigration to Hong Kong focuses on Hong Kong Education: The Times Higher Education recently released the latest global university rankings, with Peking University and Tsinghua University from mainland China both entering the top 50, ranking 48th and 49th respectively. Meanwhile, four universities from Hong Kong made it into the top 200, with the University of Hong Kong maintaining its position at 43rd, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology rising to 51st, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong ranking 129th and 192nd respectively. In various other university rankings, Hong Kong universities also generally outperform those in mainland China. Why does this small region of Hong Kong stand out so prominently in various global university rankings?
The Guardian recently published an article stating that Switzerland, with a population of only eight million, has universities that rank better than those of some major economies, with two universities in the top 20 of the QS rankings and seven universities in the top 200 of both QS and Times Higher Education rankings. In terms of population size, regional location, and internationalization, Hong Kong is quite comparable to Switzerland. Therefore, by examining Switzerland's excellent university rankings, we can gain insights into why Hong Kong's universities also shine in global university rankings.
In fact, each ranking system uses a set of weighted scoring indicators. For example, in the QS rankings, the most heavily weighted indicator is academic reputation based on scholar surveys (40%), followed by student-to-faculty ratio (20%), faculty citations per unit (20%), employer reputation based on employer surveys (10%), international student ratio (5%), and international faculty ratio (5%).
Academic reputation and employer reputation are entirely subjective indicators. The establishment of a university's academic reputation relies on accumulation, and once established, it not only drives positive evaluations but also ensures a continuous influx of research funding, high-quality students, and high-level staff, which in turn maintains and enhances its reputation. This is the main reason why prestigious universities in Western countries like the UK and the US maintain their positions in university rankings.
New universities or rising stars must focus on improving other objective indicators to advance in university rankings, and these indicators are akin to hardware construction, requiring significant investment: attracting high-level faculty and outstanding students, supporting high-impact scientific research, and so on. The success of Swiss universities is partly due to the country's substantial investment in research and development, which accounts for 2.2% of GDP, double the EU average (1.1%).
In terms of international faculty and international students, the strong research influence of top Swiss research institutions allows them to attract the best international talent, helping their universities score well on specific indicators. Additionally, Switzerland's unique geographical location in Central Western Europe makes it attractive to international faculty and students, with 21% of students in Swiss higher education institutions coming from abroad.
Regarding faculty citations per unit, like other universities in the QS top 20, the two Swiss universities also excel in science and engineering. The citation indicators in QS are based on the Elsevier Scopus database, which has two biases: it favors English publications and primarily includes journal articles rather than monographs. This gives an obvious advantage to science and engineering universities, as scientists worldwide tend to publish papers in English journals, while humanities and social sciences scholars often prefer to write in their native languages, leaning towards writing books or book chapters rather than publishing articles.
Further examination of the QS ranking system reveals that almost every indicator heavily relies on the degree of internationalization. In summary, such a ranking system is inherently more favorable to small countries or regions. This should be the technical reason why small countries like Switzerland and Singapore, as well as regions like Hong Kong and Taiwan, perform well in global university rankings.
University rankings can be seen as a game; taking them too seriously may lead to a loss of focus, as any ranking system's scoring indicators are difficult to reflect the essence of education and the true situation. For instance, some have pointed out that merely increasing the proportion of international students can easily lower the quality of education, and a high student-to-faculty ratio does not necessarily correlate with educational quality—"a renowned professor not teaching is just an empty promise, no matter how prestigious the name"; regarding citation rates, more and more people are recognizing their shortcomings in research evaluation. If running a university is solely for the purpose of improving rankings, it is akin to pursuing sports solely for gold medals, which has very limited impact on enhancing the overall quality of higher education in a country or nation.