3 universities from Turkey ranked in ‘best young universities’ list

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Three Turkish universities - Koç, Sabancı and Bilkent - have been ranked among the world’s best 100 universities of less than 50 years of age by the Times Higher Education (THE) magazine.

The universities were listed in the THE’s fourth annual “100 Under 50” list for 2015 on April 30.

Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) topped the list for the first time while three-time leader Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech) in South Korea took second place.

Turkey’s Sabancı University was ranked at 13, Bilkent University at 28 and Koç University at 51. “The Sabancı, Bilkent and Koç universities are not only very young, they are also private, benefitting from the freedom and flexibility to manage themselves in a more agile and responsive way to stay ahead of the game,” the magazine reported.

“The remainder of the top five in the THE 100 Under 50 2015 is static, with East Asian institutions continuing to dominate. “The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) holds on to third, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology retains fourth, while Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University remains fifth,” the magazine said. Twenty-eight countries and regions were represented in the table of rising global higher-education stars.

Eight nations made up the top 10, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, the U.K. and the U.S.
The U.S., which dominates traditional global rankings, had seven of the top 100 universities, the same number as Germany.

Strong performers in the rankings included Spain (six representatives), France (five) and Canada (four).

Finland, Hong Kong, Portugal, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan and Turkey had three top 100 universities each. Brazil, Morocco, Iran, Macau and Greece were also on the list. According to the THE, the ranking “highlights the new breed of global universities with the potential to become the next generation’s Harvard or Oxford, those that have managed to join the world elite in decades rather than centuries.” The list also shows which nations could challenge the U.S. and the U.K. as future higher education powerhouses.

The magazine said THE 100 Under 50 uses the same list of 13 performance indicators that underpin the THE World University Rankings, but gives less weight to subjective measures of reputation and more to hard, objective ones.