The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has made a great leap forward in the “Times Higher Education-QS World University Ranking 2009” of the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). It has moved up from the 224th place in 2008 to the 195th place in 2009 in the league table, and is now listed among the top 200 universities in the world.

In the sub-category of Subject Ranking by Engineering and Information Technology, PolyU has leapfrogged from the 121st place to 91st place over the year, making it on the list of top 100 universities in the disciplines of engineering and information technology.

PolyU has made the greatest improvement in the sub-category of Arts and Humanities, gaining 162 places in two years, including moving up by 77 places from 275th in 2008 to 198th in 2009. Details >>

Other independent surveys have also re-affirmed the strength of the University’s faculty members.

School of Hotel and Tourism Management world leadership position strengthened

The School of Hotel and Tourism Management is ranked No. 2 in the world among academic institutions in hospitality and tourism based on research and scholarship, according to the league table appears in the study “A World Ranking of the Top 100 Hospitality and Tourism Programs” published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research.The study is based on total research output in the 11 leading hospitality and tourism journals over the 15-year peroiod from 1992 to 2006.

This year PolyU’s ranking has moved up from the 4th place in 2005 to the 2nd place in 2009, and it remains the only non-US based institution in the top five. The top five institutions in the rank are Cornell University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Michigan State University, University of Nevada at Las Vegas and Pennsylvania State University.

It is also worth noting that for a more recent 5-year period from 2002 to 2006, the same study revealed that PolyU is ranked no. 1 in the world, which clearly indicates PolyU’s leadership in research in more recent years. Details >>

Civil engineering, Construction and Building Technology, Geomatics papers and citations top the world

According to surveys conducted by Thomson Reuters (formerly Thomson Scientific), a US company which produces the Science Citation Index (SCI) database, in the field of Civil Engineering as well as Construction and Building Technology, PolyU was ranked No. 1 in the world in terms of the total number of papers published in SCI journals from 2003 to 2007, and the total number of citations received by these papers in 2008. The University also ranked first in the world by research output in terms of the total number of SCI papers and citations in five major areas in the field of Geomatics from 2003 to 2008.

School of Design among the top 10 in Asia

The School of Design was twice rated as one of the top 10 design schools in Asia by BusinessWeek in 2006 and 2007. More recently, its Master of Design (Design Strategies) programme has been rated among the world’s top 30 best “design thinking programmes”, according to a survey published in the BusinessWeek (2 October 2009). Details >>

Faculty of Business among the top 50

The Faculty of Business was ranked 42nd for its finance and economics research by a study published in the Journal of Financial Economics (2009 September Issue). PolyU is the only university in Asia and Australia to cut a mark in the ranking of the top 50 business schools in the world.

In another league table, the Faculty of Business was ranked 66th in the world and No. 3 in Asia, according to an independent ranking exercise by the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) based on research contribution in the 2004-2008 period. Details >>

Engineering publication performance listed No. 63

In terms of engineering publication performance, PolyU was ranked 63rd in the world, according to the 2009 by fields Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities conducted by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan.