The firm’s 2013 Asian university rankings, released last week, show fast-rising Asian economies have made “unprecedented investment” in higher education since the financial crisis began – a time when Western institutions have reigned in spending. As such they have “rapidly increased their ability to attract the world’s best faculty and students”.

“The rankings show a five-year surge in international students studying at ranked institutions in Asia, from 175,286 to 255,212, while total international faculty has grown from 21,223 to 35,677,” Danny Byrne, a commentator for QS, said.

“The rankings show a five-year surge in international students studying at ranked institutions in Asia”

300 universities from across Asia featured in this year’s rankings, with the top ten dominated by Hong Kong (three institutions featured with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology taking top spot). There were also strong performances from Singapore and Korea, while China had most institutions in the top 300.

QS said that this year’s rankings were not radically different to 2012’s, however – the real story being the increasing global influence of Asian universities. “They are doing it quickly,” Ben Sowter, head of division in the QS Intelligence Unit, said. “At the current rate of development, Asian institutions may begin to dominate within two decades.”

He points to the 17% increase in the number of Asian universities in QS’s global top 200 rankings since the financial crisis began, with the number in the top 50 up from nine to 11. The economic robustness of most of the region, which has avoided the worst effects of the global downturn, is driving this he said (China for instance had a growth rate of 9.5% in 2011 compared to 1.5% in the USA).

Asian governments have thus been able to plough money into HE infrastructure and R&D in a way Western institutions can only dream of. Korea, one example, has raised HE participation to OECD levels in a generation and plans to spend 5% of its GDP annually on R&D.

“Further investment in HE is robust policy both politically and economically”

Sowter added that “operational agility” was at play, with Asia’s institutions able to make more drastic strategic changes due to their comparative youth and more autocratic governorships. At a national level there was political appetite to invest in HE, too – something missing in the West.

“Increasing investment in universities [in the UK] would be deeply politically unpopular,” said Sowter, by way of example. “By contrast, in Asia higher education is seen as a privilege…Further investment in HE is robust policy both politically and economically.”

Not everyone in the rankings did well, however. Japan’s dominancy is slipping: it still has more institutions in the top 200 than China but the gap has shrunk from 17 in 2011 to just three this year. QS said this suggested a shift of power between the region’s top two economies, exacerbated by Japan’s ongoing economic malaise.

India has also failed to live up to its potential. The five leading Indian institutions all rank lower than last year, and there has been a general lack of progress since the rankings began in 2009 – surprising, since for much of that period the Indian economy grew at a rate of up to 9% per year.

The top ten institutions in the QS Rankings: Asia 2013

1.  The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

2. (Joint) National University of Singapore

2. (Joint) University of Hong Kong

4. Seoul National University (Korea)

5. Peking University (China).

6. KAIST (Korea)

7. (Joint) POSTECH (Korea)

7. (Joint) The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

9. The University of Tokyo (Japan)

10. Kyoto University (Japan)