Chinese universities ‘most represented’ in latest QS BRICS rankings

20 Jul 2016

China has emerged as the top higher education provider among BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations, with up to 86 institutions making the list of best universities, revealed QS Top Universities.

In the 2016 BRICS rankings, Chinese universities dominated, taking up the top five spots, with seven institutions in the top 10 alone.

Source: QS University Rankings: BRICS 2016.

Tsinghua University was named the top university, followed by Peking University, Fudan University, University of Science and Technology of China, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

India, Russia, and Brazil each have a university in the top 10, namely the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore (#6), Lomonosov Moscow State University (#7), and Universidade de São Paulo (#10), while South Africa’s highest ranking university was the University of Cape Town at #14.

Following China’s lead, Russia and Brazil have 55 and 54 universities in the list respectively, while India boasts 44 entries, and next South Africa with 11 institutions.

BRICS nations exert a significant influence on the global stage, thanks to their large populations and growing economies, providing a lucrative market for tertiary education. All are emerging countries, collectively accounting for 42 percent of the world’s population.

Where are the top universities in the BRICS countries? Our new ranking is out now https://t.co/xu3Carsvhd #QSWUR pic.twitter.com/VYkhmQDtdX

— World Uni Rankings (@worlduniranking) July 20, 2016

The annual list was developed in 2013, and was expanded from last year’s 200 BRICS institutions to feature the top 250. In the latest rankings, 421 universities were evaluated through eight indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ration, proportion of staff with a PhD, papers per faculty member, research citations, proportion of international faculty and proportion of international students.

QS noted that in terms of academic reputation, the top four Chinese universities, in addition to Russia’s Lomonosov Moscow State University and Brazil’s Universidade de São Paulo, were awarded full marks.

As for institutions with the highest proportion of faculty members possessing PhDs, Indian and Brazilian universities performed well, with 17 Indian and 11 Brazilian universities getting full marks.

#BRICS universities join together:https://t.co/Ni29Q8jiHd #HigherEd #HigherEdNews pic.twitter.com/3nNUp62HeP

— QS Digital Solutions (@QS_Digital) July 13, 2016

For students who wish to have optimum class sizes and more one-on-one attention from instructors, Russian universities provide the best ratio of faculty members to students, with 16 of them accounting for the top 20 scores in the metric.

Chinese and South African universities are apparently among the most popular choices for international academics, managing to attract the largest proportion of international faculty members between them.

In terms of international students, Russia’s RUDN University scored the highest for its proportion of international students, with five other Russian institutions making the top 10 list for the indicator.