The Chinese regions of Shanghai and Hong Kong topped the global Pisa education league tables this week, and now it seems that the country’s universities are world-beaters too.

According to a new ranking from TES’ sister publication Times Higher Education, China boasts more top universities than any other emerging economy.

The inaugural Times Higher Education Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and Emerging Economies Rankings looks beyond the “usual suspects” in higher education and takes into account universities in those five countries, as well as 17 other “emerging economies”. 

Peking University tops the table, with Tsinghua University (based in Beijing) second.

Four of the top 10 and 23 of the top 100 institutions are Chinese.

The next best represented countries are Taiwan (21), India (10), Turkey (seven), then South Africa and Thailand (five each).

According to Ziming Cai, lecturer in human resource management at the University of Nottingham, Chinese universities have enjoyed huge financial investment over the past three decades. 

He said that special funding was set aside to propel 39 of its universities to “top-tier” global status. 

The Chinese government has also encouraged its universities to open up to the rest of the world by establishing joint programmes with Western institutions and by pushing academics to publish in international journals, he added. 

More information can be found at the Times Higher Education World University Rankings homepage.