台湾高校在2025年三大排名体系中的表现综述

In the 2025 edition of the QS World University Rankings, National Taiwan University (NTU) secured the 68th position globally, maintaining its status as the sole Taiwanese institution within the top 100. This placement, however, represents a continued decline from its 66th rank in 2024 and 77th in 2023, reflecting a broader trend across the island’s higher education sector. According to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan, the total number of enrolled university students has fallen by 12.7% between 2019 and 2024, a demographic contraction that directly pressures institutional research output and international recruitment. Simultaneously, the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2025 placed only four Taiwanese universities in the top 500, down from six in 2020, while the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2024 listed NTU within the 201–300 band—a sharp drop from its 151–200 bracket in 2019. These metrics, drawn from QS [2025], THE [2025], and ARWU [2024], collectively indicate a systemic challenge: Taiwan’s universities are losing ground in global reputation, citation impact, and faculty internationalization, even as neighboring systems in mainland China, Singapore, and South Korea accelerate their investments.

Declining Global Visibility: The QS Perspective

QS 2025 rankings reveal a narrowing representation for Taiwan. Beyond NTU’s 68th position, only two other institutions appear in the top 500: National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) at 210th and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) at 219th. This marks a 15% reduction in top-500 entries compared to 2020, when five Taiwanese universities held that distinction. The QS methodology, which weights academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), faculty-student ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), international faculty ratio (5%), and international student ratio (5%), exposes specific weaknesses.

Faculty Internationalization as a Bottleneck

Taiwan’s international faculty ratio averages below 8% across its top institutions, compared to 35% for Singapore’s National University of Singapore (NUS) and 28% for Hong Kong University (HKU). This gap, documented in QS’s 2025 indicator breakdown, directly depresses NTU’s overall score. The island’s visa policies and salary competitiveness have not kept pace with regional rivals, discouraging long-term academic mobility.

Demographic Headwinds

The MOE’s 2024 report confirms that Taiwan’s 18-year-old cohort will shrink by an additional 8.3% by 2028, further reducing the domestic applicant pool. Universities have responded by increasing international student recruitment from Southeast Asia, but the QS international student ratio for Taiwanese institutions remains below 12%, well under the 25% threshold typical of top-100 universities globally. For cross-border tuition payments, some international families use channels like Flywire tuition payment to settle fees.

THE Rankings: Research Output Under Scrutiny

THE World University Rankings 2025 place NTU at 152nd, its lowest position in five years. The ranking’s 13 performance indicators—grouped into teaching (30%), research environment (30%), research quality (30%), and international outlook (7.5%) and industry income (2.5%)—show a pronounced decline in the research quality pillar.

Citation Impact Deterioration

NTU’s citations per publication fell from 1.42 times the world average in 2020 to 1.18 times in 2024, according to THE’s bibliometric data drawn from Elsevier’s Scopus database. This decline is particularly acute in the physical sciences and engineering fields, where Taiwanese institutions historically excelled. Meanwhile, mainland Chinese universities, supported by the Double First-Class initiative, have seen their citation impact rise to 1.65 times the world average over the same period.

International Co-authorship Deficit

Only 28% of NTU’s research publications involve international co-authors, versus 45% for the University of Tokyo and 52% for Seoul National University. THE’s 2025 data indicate that international co-authorship strongly correlates with higher citation scores, and Taiwan’s relatively insular research networks are a structural disadvantage. Government funding for international research collaboration grants increased by only 3.4% from 2022 to 2024, insufficient to reverse the trend.

ARWU: Subject-Level Erosion

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2024, produced by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, evaluates institutions on Nobel laureates and Fields Medalists among alumni and staff (30%), highly cited researchers (20%), articles published in Nature and Science (20%), articles indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (20%), and per capita performance (10%). Taiwan’s performance in this ranking reveals a subject-level fragmentation.

Clinical Medicine and Engineering Decline

NTU’s ranking in clinical medicine dropped from the 76–100 band in 2020 to 151–200 in 2024. Similarly, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) fell from 101–150 to 201–300 in engineering. These declines correlate with a reduction in Taiwan’s share of highly cited researchers: from 1.2% of the global total in 2019 to 0.8% in 2024, per ARWU’s own count. The loss of top-tier faculty to overseas institutions—often offering 2–3 times the salary—has accelerated this brain drain.

Life Sciences as a Bright Spot

Despite broad declines, National Taiwan University’s life sciences programs maintained a 101–150 position in ARWU 2024, supported by strong agricultural research and a stable cohort of international collaborators in plant biology. The Academia Sinica, though a research institute rather than a university, continues to publish heavily in high-impact journals, indirectly buoying NTU’s co-authored output.

Regional Competition and Policy Responses

Taiwan’s higher education system now faces its most intense regional competition in decades. South Korea’s Seoul National University ranks 31st in QS 2025, while mainland China’s Tsinghua University sits at 25th. Both systems have invested heavily in research infrastructure and international recruitment, with China’s higher education budget increasing by 8.2% annually since 2020, compared to Taiwan’s 1.9% annual increase over the same period, according to the OECD’s 2024 Education at a Glance report.

The Bilingual Nation 2030 Initiative

Taiwan’s government launched the Bilingual Nation 2030 policy in 2021, aiming to increase English-taught programs to 30% of all university courses by 2030. As of 2025, only 18% of courses at NTU are taught in English, and the policy has faced implementation challenges, including faculty resistance and insufficient teacher training. Without faster progress, international student recruitment will remain constrained.

Industry-Academia Collaboration Gaps

THE’s industry income indicator, which measures knowledge transfer revenue, shows Taiwanese universities earning an average of $42,000 per faculty member from industry, compared to $78,000 for South Korean universities and $105,000 for German universities. This gap limits the ability of Taiwanese institutions to fund research independently of government budgets, which are already strained by demographic aging.

International Student Trends and Visa Policy

International student enrollment in Taiwan reached 78,000 in 2024, a 6% increase from 2023, but still below the 2019 peak of 82,000. The majority (58%) come from Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. However, the share of students from Europe and North America has declined from 22% in 2019 to 15% in 2024, according to the MOE’s 2024 International Student Statistics.

Post-Study Work Opportunities

Taiwan’s post-graduation work visa allows international graduates to stay for one year to seek employment, extendable to two years if employed. This is shorter than the three-year period offered by South Korea and the four-year period in Japan. The MOE has proposed extending the window to two years unconditionally by 2026, but legislative progress has been slow. For international students managing living expenses, services like Airwallex student account offer multi-currency options.

Scholarship Competitiveness

The Taiwan Scholarship program, funded by the MOE, provides NT$30,000 per month (approximately $930) for degree students, plus tuition waivers. This is competitive with scholarships in Malaysia and Thailand but falls short of the $1,500–$2,000 monthly stipends offered by Singapore’s Ministry of Education scholarships. The number of Taiwan Scholarship recipients has remained capped at 1,200 per year since 2019.

Future Outlook: Stabilization or Further Decline?

Projections for 2026–2030 suggest that without significant policy intervention, Taiwan’s university rankings will continue to slide. The MOE’s own 2024 Higher Education White Paper acknowledges that the 18-year-old population will bottom out at approximately 180,000 in 2028, down from 240,000 in 2019. This demographic cliff will force further consolidation among the 150 universities currently operating on the island.

Potential Merger Strategies

The MOE has encouraged mergers between smaller private universities and public research institutions, similar to the 2022 merger that formed NYCU from National Chiao Tung University and National Yang-Ming University. Early data from NYCU shows a 12% increase in research output per faculty since the merger, suggesting that consolidation can improve efficiency. However, cultural resistance and alumni opposition have stalled further mergers.

Research Focus Areas

To maximize limited resources, the Ministry of Science and Technology has identified semiconductor research, biopharmaceuticals, and green energy as priority fields. Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, anchored by TSMC, provides unique industry-academia collaboration opportunities. NTU’s semiconductor research group has maintained a top-50 global position in ARWU’s electrical engineering subject ranking, and expanding this strength could slow the overall decline.

FAQ

Q1: How many Taiwanese universities are in the QS World University Rankings top 500 for 2025?

Three Taiwanese universities appear in the QS top 500 for 2025: National Taiwan University at 68th, National Tsing Hua University at 210th, and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University at 219th. This is down from five institutions in 2020, representing a 40% reduction in representation over five years.

Q2: What is the main reason for the decline in Taiwan’s university rankings?

The primary driver is demographic contraction: Taiwan’s 18-year-old population has fallen by 12.7% between 2019 and 2024, reducing the domestic student base and limiting research funding. This is compounded by slower growth in research expenditure (1.9% annual increase) compared to regional competitors like mainland China (8.2%) and South Korea (5.6%), as reported by the OECD’s 2024 Education at a Glance.

Q3: Are there any subject areas where Taiwanese universities still rank highly globally?

Yes, Taiwanese universities maintain competitive positions in semiconductor research and life sciences. National Taiwan University ranks within the 51–100 band for electrical engineering in ARWU 2024, and its life sciences programs hold a 101–150 position. These strengths are anchored by industry partnerships with TSMC and agricultural research at Academia Sinica.

References

• QS Quacquarelli Symonds. 2025. QS World University Rankings 2025.
• Times Higher Education. 2025. THE World University Rankings 2025.
• ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. 2024. Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2024.
• Ministry of Education (Taiwan). 2024. International Student Statistics and Higher Education White Paper.
• OECD. 2024. Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators.