The QS World University Rankings: Asia, first published in 2009 were the first extension beyond the main global tables and were intended to reveal the performance of a much larger number of ambitious institutions from this fast-moving region.

The methodology differs somewhat from that used for the QS World University Rankings® based on feedback collected from the region, the expert assessment of important factors in the region and the availability of data. The research excellence element, that exists in all of our regional rankings, is based on data from Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed academic literature.
Eleven indicators are drawn together to form this regional ranking of universities:
Both the different selection of indicators and weightings combined with the recalibration of measures in the context of the Asian region means that this ranking will inevitably yield different results to an Asian extract from the world rankings. This will be evident right from the very top of the results table where it is common for leading institutions to appear in a different order between the two tables. Partly this demonstrates that different universities are great at slightly different things but statistically the correlation between the two lists is very high – good universities in one are good in the other and the differences in results should inspire enquiry as to what the tables measure.
If your university has been ranked in last year’s edition of the QS University Rankings: Asia, you can also download the badges for your marketing materials here.