Top universities in emerging economies 2019

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Once again, Chinese universities continue to excel. But this year, Egypt and Malaysia stood out, climbing spots and claiming 30 positions altogether.

Photo: The Grand Auditorium at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China / By: Pfctdayelise.

As every year, Times Higher Education unveiled its university rankings of emerging economies. A total of 442 institutions from 43 countries were included in this 2019 edition of the Emerging Economies University Rankings.

Despite rising competition from China, the fastest improving higher education systems in developing countries over the past year were Egypt and Malaysia, according to Times Higher Education. Egypt claimed 19 spots and Malaysia took 11 this year. From Malaysia, the University of Malaya climbed nine places to enter the top 20, while the Suez Canal University from Egypt ranked in the 114th position, up from the 251-300 slot last year. An analysis made by the publication shows that their citation impact scores largely drove Egypt’s and Malaysia’s improvements.

Highlighted Latin American universities

Although the Chinese universities shone again this year, Latin American institutions occupy distinguished ranks in the Top 100. Once again, the University of Campinas, from Brazil, kept the 40th place on the table, followed by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) in number 73. From Chile, in the 80th position is the Diego Portales University, followed by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Desarrollo in number 84 and 85 respectively.

From Mexico, Tec de Monterrey placed in number 90 while the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), positioned in the 93rd place of the table. They were pursued by the Pontifical Javeriana University, from Colombia, in number 95 and a tie between the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, from Peru, in the 97th position.

Top 10 universities in emerging economies 2019

Tsinghua University – China
Peking University – China
Zhejiang University – China
University of Science and Technology – China
Lomonosov Moscow State University – Russia
Fudan University – China
Nanjing University – China
Shanghai Jiao Tong University – China
University of Cape Town – South Africa
National Taiwan University – Taiwan

It is worth noting that some institutions improved considerably in position thanks to their efforts in quality research and the good reputation of their teaching. It has become clear that volume of publications and citations have become key performance indicators for lecturers in developing countries.

Related stories