Warwick third best ‘young’ university

Warwick University has been ranked third for the second year running in the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) table, which lists the world’s fifty best “young” universities.

The QS table features universities that are under fifty years old, with formation in 1963 being the cut-off point.

Warwick is one of seven UK universities named in the ranking, along with other institutions such as Brunel, Loughborough and Bath, and it is also the highest-ranked European university.

Lancaster was the other British university alongside Warwick to break into the top ten of a list that shows that it is no longer purely older and more traditional institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge, that draw admiring glances from the rest of world.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Nanyang Technological University, based in Singapore make up first and second place, both of which were formed in 1991.

The list, compiled by the international employment and educational consultants of QS, is based on various factors such as the academic record of the universities, and their reputations amongst both firms and students.

The growth in dominance of Asian institutions is an overriding theme of the ranking, as Asian universities took five of the top six spots.

Ben Sowter, head of the QS Intelligence Unit, commented: “Asian higher education is undergoing a rapid transformation.

“The next two decades could see leading US and European universities objectively overtaken.”

This achievement of third spot in the QS ranking of young universities has come in the wake of Warwick’s dropping from fifth to tenth in Guardian newspaper’s university league table.

However, head of communications for Warwick, Peter Dunn, said: “There are a great many university league tables out there, and one has to take each such table with a pinch of salt.”

“But the fact this table ranks us third and every single UK university league table ranks us in the top ten suggests we must be doing something right.”