Five Vietnamese universities climb in global rankings

Duy Tan University in Da Nang ranked highest among them, at 495th, a 19-place improvement from the previous year.

It was followed by Ton Duc Thang University in Ho Chi Minh City, which is placed in the 711-720 group, up by 10 places.

Vietnam National University in Hanoi entered 851-900, an increase of 100 ranks, while the Ho Chi Minh City counterpart was placed in the 901-950 group, up by 50.

The other two representatives, Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Hue University, were both in the top 1400. Hue University is considered to have made improvements since it was not listed by QS last year.

This year's ranking is the largest ever, featuring over 1,500 universities across 105 higher education systems. The U.S. is the most represented territory with 197 ranked institutions, followed by the U.K. with 90 and China with 71.

For the 13th consecutive year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) maintains its reign at the top. Imperial College London jumps four places to take second and Oxford and Harvard are in third and fourth place respectively. Cambridge rounds out the top five. 

In the nine criteria used, academic reputation carried the most weight at 30%, followed by citation per faculty at 20%. This is why Duy Tan University and Ton Duc Thang University consistently rank higher than other Vietnamese universities in the rankings.

The remaining criteria of employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, international ratios, international research network, employability outcomes, and sustainability accounted for 5-15%.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, in 2022, the two Vietnamese universities have implemented many policies to promote scientific research, allocating a significant portion of their revenues to this activity.

Besides faculty research, both also have research cooperation contracts with domestic and international scientists, which helps increase their international publications and citation indices.

For Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Nghiem Xuan Huy, head of the Institute for Educational Quality Assurance, noted that the 100-place rise this year was due to high evaluations in the employer reputation criterion (472nd globally with 18.7 points) and employment outcomes (202nd with 60.1 points, a 49.3-point increase from the previous ranking).

"Besides that, VNU has also maintained sustainable growth in international publications and a reasonable faculty/student ratio," he added.