Asia University Enters 2019 University Impact Ranking by THE Report.
The UK Times Higher Education (THE) Report recently announces the 2019 University Impact Ranking in the world. Asia University is ranked to be the top 4th in Taiwan!
Asia University (AU) is ranked to be the No. 107 in the list of 2019 University Impact Ranking in the world by the UK Times Higher Education (THE) Report, and this report also reveals that AU is the No. 4 best in Taiwan. Furthermore, based on the respective indicators of the ranking, AU is the No. 9 in the world and the No. 1 in Taiwan according to the indicator of Reduced Inequalities; the No. 51 in the world and the No. 2 in Taiwan according to the indicator of Quality Education; and the No. 54 in the world and the No. 1 according to the indicator of Sustainable Cities and Communities.
The Vice President of AU and the Director of the Center for University Social Responsibility (USR), Prof. Huei-Chen Ko, points out that this is the first ranking regarding to world university impacts by the THE Report which evaluated 462 universities from 76 countries. This University Impact Ranking is the only global performance table according to the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) of the United Nations. The THE Report calibrates 11 indicators from 17 indicators of SDGs to provide comprehensive and balanced comparisons across the three broad areas: research, outreach, and stewardship. In other words, this ranking can be seen as an evaluation of USR, and a total of 12 universities of Taiwan are entered into the list of the top-300 universities.
AU President, Jeffrey J. P. Tsai, says that AU gets an excellence performance on the indicator of Reduced Inequalities, which is the top 9 in the world and the top 1 in Taiwan. Because AU provides a number of welfare benefits to disadvantage students, including scholarships for students under the poverty line, and career guidance to assist students focus on study. Actually, AU also provides scholarships for international students from developing countries. In 2017, AU granted scholarships for 199 international students who came from the low-income countries. Furthermore, in 2016, AU set up an aboriginal resource center and an aboriginal student association to provide a place for cultural exchanges for the current 200 aboriginal students in the school.
Another noticeable indicator of the THE University Impact Ranking is Education Quality. For that, AU is ranked as the No. 51 in the world and the No. 2 in Taiwan. President Tsai expresses that in the duration of the recent six years from 2014, AU has been evaluated as one of the outstanding universities on the education quality in multiple rankings by the THE Report; including the World University Ranking, Asia University Ranking, Asia-Pacific Region Ranking, Emerging Economies University Ranking, and Young University Ranking. In addition, in recent years AU has been ranked as a top-100 university in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the UK QS Global University Rankings, and the Global University Ranking of the US News and World Report Magazine. These international affirmations show that AU has been successfully transformed researches and educational outcomes into actual contributions to the society.
According to the viewpoint of President Tsai, the reasons why AU can be ranked to be in the top 54 in the world and the top 1 in Taiwan according to the indicator of Sustainable Cities and Communities are below. Firstly, AU has been elected as one of the most beautiful campus in Taiwan. In particular, the AU Museum of Modern Art is designed by the world-famous architect and designer Tadao Ando; it is aimed to be an aesthetic education center for students. Moreover, the gymnasium of AU has won an award from FIABCI Taiwan Real Estate Excellence Award. To promote the green construction of the campus, AU has put lots of efforts on saving energy and reducing carbon emission. So far, the school campus has been certified by the ISO 50001 Energy Management System Certification, the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Certification, and the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001 (OHSAS18001). In the meantime, AU has won the award of energy conservation from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and entered the leading list of GreenMetric World University Ranking. Besides the beautiful campus, each season AU arranges a series of AU Arts Festival including aesthetics and literature talks, music concerts, and drama performances which are opened to the public.