Ajou News

NEW Ajou University Ranks Among Korea’s Top 5 in THE Young University Rankings

  • 2021-08-03
  • 6427

Ajou University has been selected as one of Korea’s top 5 in THE Young University Rankings, along with KAIST, POSTECH, UNIST and GIST.


The UK’s Times Higher Education (THE) lists the world’s best universities that are no more than 50 years old. In this year’s THE Young University Rankings, Ajou University ranked 152nd internationally and 5th domestically. 


Ajou University has moved up more than 50 ranks from last year (201st~250th). This year’s improvement is very meaningful as it came amid a growing number of universities participating in THE Young University Rankings. Improving its overall evaluation scores ranging from education conditions, research, paper citations, globalization and industry-academia cooperation has been instrumental in driving this improvement.  


The UK university evaluation institution THE announced its 2021 THE Young University Rankings on June 23rd with results of its evaluation of 475 international universities under 50 years of age. THE has been publishing the rankings since 2010 using indicators such as ▲education conditions (30%) ▲research results (30%) ▲paper citations (30%) ▲globalization (7.5%) and ▲industry-academia cooperation (2.5%).


 Nanyang Technological University (NTU) tops the global ranking of the best young universities followed by France’s PSL (2nd) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology(3rd). Global rankings of Korea universities include KAIST in 4th place and POSTECH and UNIST in 8th and 10th place respectively. 


Ajou University has made a variety of efforts to attract talented faculty and strengthen its research capabilities. The university has established a new “Best Paper Awards” which awards its professors according to qualitative evaluations of their papers and expanded its settlement research expenses for newly-hired professors. For instance, newly-hired professors at Ajou University in science and engineering are entitled to receive a maximum of KRW 100 million in research grants, while those in the humanities and social sciences are entitled to a maximum of KRW 50 million. The period of eligibility for this research grant, spanning receipt of the grant to the submission of results, has been extended from three years to four. To improve its research capability, Ajou has subsidized research expenses of post-doctorate researchers and actively invited outstanding research experts through its participation in international symposiums. 


Efforts like this have resulted in the university earning KRW 3.35 billion in technology transfer revenues last year. These proceeds come from industry-academia cooperation projects and are an indicator that signifies research strength. Ajou University’s proceeds have been on the rise for the past five consecutive years. Technology transfer revenue proceeds refer to money paid by companies to the university in exchange for acquiring intellectual property towards using the outcomes of research by university research teams. 


Ajou University has been seeing continuous good results in many university rankings announced by global university rating institutions. It ranked in the 531st-540th group by the QS World University Rankings, representing 3 consecutive years of improvement, published in early June this year and 130th in THE Asia University Rankings 2021—representing a move up 49 places from last year. In addition, Ajou ranked in the 201st-300th group in THE Impact Rankings 2021, moving over 100 places up year-on-year. THE Impact Rankings look into social responsibility activities at each university, centered around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).