World Reputation Rankings

Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings
15 Asian universities among world's top 100 in reputation ranking

SINGAPORE, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Fifteen Asian universities made their way into the world's 100 best universities in a reputation ranking released on Thursday, including two Singapore universities.

Japan's University of Tokyo is the only Asian university among the top ten, coming in the eighth place on the list released for the first time by the Times Higher Education magazine. It is based on the views of 13,388 experienced academics in some 130 countries. Kyoto University is the second best in Asia and the 18th best in the world, according to the ranking.

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A university's brand - crucial in helping to attract students, staff and funding - is built on esteem. Times Higher Education's first World Reputation Rankings reveal how academics view the strength of institutions' teaching and research, while John Morgan explores brand values, virtues and vices

In an increasingly competitive higher education marketplace, branding has become big business for universities.

Institutions know that, in a sense, the degrees they confer are worth only as much as their brand. In nations where tuition fees are established, students "buy" a brand that will appeal to the right businesses when it is time to find a job; their choice of university will become part of their own "brand identity". To attract the right calibre of academics, a university relies on its brand. And when those same academics submit a proposal for research funding or a paper to a leading journal, the brand of their institution may play a role in how their research is judged. The university's brand becomes part of their own brand as an academic.

The notion of a university as a brand is one that many in higher education are comfortable with. It induces a wave of nausea in others, who warn that by focusing on branding, universities promote a view of higher education as a commodity rather than as a good in itself.

But if a university is a brand, a key factor determining its strength is reputation in teaching and research (brand and reputation are distinct but related). And the views of academics on university reputation are crucial, for they give an insight into which institutions are best placed to attract top talent, and also influence the views of students and parents.

The results of the first Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings shed light on this increasingly important measure. The reputation ranking is drawn from a survey of more than 13,000 experienced academics worldwide, carried out by polling company Ipsos for our rankings data provider, Thomson Reuters. The data informed the current Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2010-11, but are now published in isolation for the first time, revealing clear discrepancies between some institutions' reputations and their overall ranking.