Korean universities slip down in QS global ranking

Seoul National University's main gate [LEE BYUNG-JUN]

Major Korean universities slipped in the 2024 QS World University Rankings.

Quacquarelli Symonds has been publishing the QS World University Rankings since 2004. The 2024 QS World University Rankings announced Tuesday featured 1,503 institutions around the world, with five Korean universities making it to the top 100.

Seoul National University ranked highest among Korean universities at 41st. This year's ranking, however, is lower than last year's placement of 29th.

It ranked 7th among Asian universities.

Three new indicators — sustainability, employment outcome and international research network — were introduced to the QS ranking system this year. Existing six indicators — academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio and international student ratio — were also taken into consideration.

Among the new indicators, Seoul National University scored 100 out of 100 for the employment outcome category. It scored 73.8 out of 100 for the sustainability criterion, which assesses a school's environmental and social impact. The school's score on the international research network criterion, referring to how much a school conducts collaborative research and how internationally connected its research is, was 36.9 out of 100 points.

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) ranked 56th in the 2024 QS World University Rankings, down from last year's placement at 42nd. It came 13th in Asia.

Yonsei University ranked 76th, down from last year's 73th. The university still kept its place as the top private university in Korea and came 19th in Asia.

Korea University ranked 79th, down from last year's 74th. Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech) ranked 100th, down from last year's 71st.

Seoul National University, KAIST, Yonsei University, Korea University and Postech were the only five Korean universities to make it to the top 100 world university rankings, compared to six schools achieving the feat last year.

Sungkyunkwan University ranked 145th and was pushed out of the top 100 for 2024. The university ranked 99th last year.

Hanyang University ranked 164th, down from 157th place. Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology placed 266th, down from 197th.

Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (Dgist) ranked 307th.

This is Dgist's first year being assessed for the QS Rankings due to its short history of producing its first graduates in 2018.

"We were acknowledged for our world-renowned research quality for the recent QS World University Rankings, and we hope Dgist will continue to foster talented graduates and be up to par with prestigious universities around the world," Kuk Yang, president of Dgist, said

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology was the tenth Korean university that made it to the world rankings. It placed 328th, down from last year's 288th.

Results were mixed for the Asia University Rankings 2023 announced by Times Higher Education on June 22.

Nine universities made it to the top 50 list, compared to 10 making the top 50 the previous year.

Seoul National University fell to 11th, compared to 8th the previous year, but Yonsei University climbed to 13th from 21st. KAIST ranked 17th, down from its previous year's placement of 14th. Unist edged down to 21th from last year's 20th place. Postech moved up one rank to 22nd, compared to last year's 23rd place.

BY LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]