Vietnam gets one listed in world's top 100 'young' universities

By Minh Nga February 16, 2022 | 06:16 pm PT

Ton Duc Thang University campus in HCMC's District 7. Photo courtesy of the university

HCMC's Ton Duc Thang University has become the first tertiary institution in Vietnam to be listed among the world's 100 best under-50 universities.

According to the Young University Rankings 2022 released by the U.K. magazine Times Higher Education (THE) on Feb. 15, Ton Duc Thang University in Ho Chi Minh City stands 98th in the ranking that evaluated 539 schools.

THE said that the ranking assessed research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The performance indicators were grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research influence); international outlook (staff, students and research); and industry income (knowledge transfer).

Established in 1997, Ton Duc Thang University "has steadily developed into one of the largest and fastest-growing universities in Vietnam with over 25,000 students and 1,300 faculty members," the magazine said.

The school scored its highest marks in the citations category, at 99.3 out of 100.

Vietnam has three other universities in the Young University Rankings 2022: Duy Tan University in central Da Nang City at 122, Vietnam National University, Hanoi in the 301-350 group, and the Vietnam National University, HCMC in the 401+ group.

This year, Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris has overtaken Nanyang Technological University, Singapore for the top spot.

Nanyang was pushed to the second spot and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came in third.

Turkey, India and Iran have also significantly boosted the numbers of institutions in the Young University Rankings, with the first two the most-represented countries in the table. Turkey and India each have 40 ranked universities, up from 23 and 26 respectively in 2020. Iran now has 37 young universities in the rankings, up from 20 two years ago.

Times Higher Education became known for publishing the annual Times Higher Education – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, which first appeared in November 2004.

In 2009, it broke with QS, the world's largest international higher education network, and signed an agreement with Thomson Reuters to provide the data instead.