22 Chinese mainland universities selected for world's top 500

The Chinese mainland has 22 universities that will rank among the world's top 500, 14 more than there were 7 years ago, according to a recent report published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Cheng Ying, the executive director of the world-class university research center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University said that "Academic Ranking of World Universities" was one of their research productions.

And on this year's top 500 list, Harvard maintains top position for the eighth time, Tokyo university ranks 20 to be the highest ranking of all Asian-Pacific universities. Of the top 100, American universities occupied 54 positions.

Cheng Ying said that Peking University and Tsinghua University were first listed in top 200 at the same time but both between 151 and 200. Wuhan University ranks among 401 to 500.

Out of top 100, the detailed positions on the ranking list have not been released, Cheng explained.

This is the eighth list since Shanghai Jiao Tong University started to do this in 2003.

Cheng Ying said that Chinese universities lacked a common understanding on their rankings in the world before 2003. Some of them thought that they were in the top 50, while some believed they were out of top 1000.
　　
And he believed that their "Academic Ranking of World Universities" has answered the questions. He also disclosed that they would put forward many suggestions to the Ministry of Education every year.　

Cheng explained that the increase in the number of Chinese universities on the list is mainly due to the rise in the number of papers and theses. If ranked solely according to the number of the papers, four universities on the Chinese mainland would be listed in the top 50. However, after the overall evaluation, they all dropped to below 150th place.

Cheng said the gap between Chinese domestic universities and the high-ranking universities was mainly because domestic universities now fewer people with influence in the international academic community. He said that there may be over 100 world-renowned academics in a single university in America, while there are only a handful in all Chinese domestic universities combined.

Cheng denied the earlier speculation that the list may have been compromised because they received financial support from interested parties. He said that their spending came from research funds and they did not accept any donations.
　
Although the evaluation schemes have room to improve, Cheng said that the result on the list was completely objective, fair, transparent and open to the public.

By Zhao Chenyan, People's Daily Online