World's top 100 universities under 50: ranked by Times Higher Education

South Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology has topped a list of the best universities under the age of 50.

The inaugural rankings by Times Higher Education (THE) aim to show "which nations are challenging the US and UK as the next higher education powerhouses". Swiss university, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne follows in second place.

Six countries are represented in the top 10 - South Korea, Switzerland, Hong Kong, US, France and the UK, making it more diverse than the traditional world top 100 which is usually dominated by US and UK institutions.

Universities in East Asia are highlighted in the rankings, with South Korea taking two of the top five places. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology comes in at third place and in total Hong Kong has four institutions within the top 50.

The Google fusion map above shows the locations of all the universities on the top 100 under 50 rankings and includes individual scores for teaching, research, citations, income from industry and international mix. Click on an icon to explore.

So what do the rankings show us? Here is some of the key data from the rankings:

•30 different countries are represented in the top 100 – compared to just 26 in the top 200 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
• 20 of the top 100 under 50 instutions are in the UK. Australia follows next with 14
• 9 universities in the rankings are from the US. In the Times Higher Education world top 100 universities ranked for reputation, the US dominated taking 60% of the places on the list
• 1998 - the youngest university, Milan-Bicocca in Italy came 25th
• 5 - both Spain and Taiwan have five institutions on the rankings following after the UK (20 institutions), Australia (14) and the US (9)

York University is the highest ranked UK institution on the list. Lancaster, Stirling and Loughborough also make the list.

Thirteen indicators across 5 areas - research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international activity - were taken into account. The full methodolgy can be found here.

Download the spreadsheet to see the individual scores by institution. The spreadsheet also has details of the year the university was founded and the rankings in the THE world top 100.

What can you do with the data?

Data summary

Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 rankings

100 Under 50 rank	World University Rankings 2011-2012 position	Institution	Country	Teaching	Research	Citations	Overall score
1	53	Pohang University of Science and Technology	Republic of Korea	65.9	66.8	92.3	71.8
2	46	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland	55.9	40.9	95.3	66.2
3	62	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong	51.4	62.6	71.0	63.0
4	86	University of California, Irvine	US	42.2	51.5	93.5	60.0
5		Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	Republic of Korea	71.3	61.3	47.1	58.6
6	84	Université Pierre et Marie Curie	France	61.6	26.3	81.1	56.3
7	110	University of California, Santa Cruz	US	31.6	45.4	99.9	56.0
8		University of York	UK	43.1	50.1	71.6	55.7
9		Lancaster University	UK	38.2	43.2	75.4	53.6
10	145	University of East Anglia	UK	32.2	32.7	85.6	51.0
11	167	University of Illinois at Chicago	US	59.9	49.1	43.3	48.7
12		Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	47.4	56.2	37.8	48.5
13		University of Warwick	UK	42.1	49.3	45.0	48.1
14	194	Universität Konstanz	Germany	36.3	39.6	62.8	47.7
15		Université Paris Diderot–Paris 7	France	28.0	20.0	88.9	46.8
16		Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	40.4	52.3	34.5	46.0
17	186	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain	28.1	19.8	87.6	45.7
18	193	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	32.5	42.2	57.4	45.5
19	197	Maastricht University	Netherlands	33.8	38.8	53.9	44.9
20	201-225	University of Essex	UK	38.5	48.6	37.0	44.7
21	201-225	University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey	US	62.7	19.8	55.6	44.6
22	201-225	Universität Ulm	Germany	53.0	26.2	46.7	43.3
23	201-225	Umeå University	Sweden	25.2	40.4	59.4	42.1
24	201-225	Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain	35.9	30.8	57.9	41.7
25	226-250	University of Milan-Bicocca	Italy	29.9	17.6	78.3	41.1
26	251-275	Ruhr-Universität Bochum	Germany	44.2	38.9	36.0	40.7
27	226-250	Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences	Sweden	36.2	30.2	49.8	40.6
28	226-250	University of Calgary	Canada	38.0	43.0	39.7	40.4
29	251-275	University of Texas at Dallas	US	28.2	50.3	44.2	40.3
	251-275	National Sun Yat-Sen University	Taiwan	32.4	44.9	48.5	40.0
	226-250	Simon Fraser University	Canada	22.0	41.1	53.0	40.0
32	201-225	Bilkent University	Turkey	29.9	24.3	60.8	38.9
	226-250	Macquarie University	Australia	25.1	29.9	46.5	38.5
	251-275	University of Wollongong	Australia	26.9	32.2	43.5	38.5
35	251-275	Brunel University	UK	22.3	29.0	51.7	38.4
36	251-275	University of Southern Denmark	Denmark	26.2	17.6	58.0	37.8
	251-275	University of Bath	UK	31.3	30.4	39.9	37.5
	276-300	University of Trento	Italy	28.6	28.3	51.5	37.5
39	251-275	University of Tsukuba	Japan	43.9	29.0	41.4	37.1
40	276-300	Queensland University of Technology	Australia	25.7	37.5	35.5	37.0
41	251-275	Johannes Kepler Universität Linz	Austria	24.1	15.5	62.8	36.8
42	251-275	Universität Bielefeld	Germany	23.9	22.5	61.6	36.5
43	276-300	University of Tromsø	Norway	30.4	18.8	53.0	36.2
44	276-300	State University of Campinas	Brazil	59.6	36.4	15.2	35.9
45	276-300	University of Newcastle	Australia	22.2	36.8	35.8	35.8
	251-275	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong	31.2	42.8	22.2	35.4
	276-300	Université Montpellier 2	France	30.7	9.6	62.3	35.4
48	301-350	Charles Darwin University	Australia	21.7	29.0	52.6	35.3
49	276-300	Autonomous University of Madrid	Spain	32.2	23.9	47.5	34.9
	301-350	University of Stirling	UK	22.2	31.2	42.0	34.5
	276-300	University of Crete	Greece	16.9	18.0	66.7	34.5
	276-300	University of Guelph	Canada	26.0	38.0	38.6	34.5
53	276-300	University of Texas at San Antonio	US	17.1	19.5	70.3	34.4
54	301-350	University of Eastern Finland	Finland	29.4	22.8	51.1	34.3
55	301-350	National Taiwan University of Science and Technology	Taiwan	31.1	53.6	19.4	33.5
56	301-350	University of Surrey	UK	40.5	34.1	12.4	33.4
57	301-350	George Mason University	US	36.0	23.3	42.6	33.0
58	301-350	University of Waikato	New Zealand	17.0	19.4	47.8	32.4
59	301-350	Linköping University	Sweden	23.8	26.3	42.8	32.3
60	301-350	Plymouth University	UK	15.7	19.3	58.1	32.2
61	301-350	Keele University	UK	22.6	25.8	39.8	31.9
62	301-350	University of Hertfordshire	UK	15.9	10.9	55.5	31.1
63	301-350	University of Maryland, Baltimore County	US	22.0	20.6	52.8	30.8
64	351-400	National University of Ireland, Maynooth	Republic of Ireland	30.3	26.9	22.1	30.1
65	351-400	University of South Australia	Australia	26.8	25.6	19.4	29.9
66	301-350	Aveiro University	Portugal	21.3	22.2	40.9	29.8
67	301-350	Aalborg University	Denmark	22.8	27.2	27.1	29.7
68	301-350	Sharif University of Technology	Iran	30.0	37.2	19.3	29.2
69	351-400	Loughborough University	UK	32.0	31.8	9.2	27.9
70	351-400	Yuan Ze University	Taiwan	14.2	14.3	58.3	27.8
71	351-400	University of Strathclyde	UK	30.4	24.1	19.3	27.7
	351-400	Heriot-Watt University	UK	27.2	21.8	18.8	27.6
	351-400	Liverpool John Moores University	UK	15.4	12.7	48.4	27.6
74	351-400	Polytechnic University of Valencia	Spain	24.4	11.9	45.3	27.1
	351-400	Université Paris 13	France	16.2	16.0	39.4	26.6
	351-400	Curtin University	Australia	19.7	14.8	28.7	26.6
77	351-400	Massey University	New Zealand	20.3	22.1	24.5	26.4
	351-400	Deakin University	Australia	21.7	22.8	26.2	26.1
	351-400	Flinders University	Australia	21.9	26.8	20.3	26.1
80	351-400	University of Kent	UK	19.4	25.1	19.1	25.9
	351-400	Griffith University	Australia	19.4	21.6	20.3	25.1
	351-400	La Trobe University	Australia	22.9	26.8	13.6	25.1
83	351-400	Aston University	UK	19.8	28.2	11.7	24.9
84	–	Florida International University	US	28.7	25.3	18.2	24.7
85	351-400	New University of Lisbon	Portugal	23.0	15.5	28.3	24.6
	351-400	Polytechnic University of Catalonia	Spain	27.4	14.7	23.3	23.9
	–	Dublin City University	Republic of Ireland	20.5	18.3	18.4	23.9
88	–	University of Technology, Sydney	Australia	20.9	16.8	18.7	23.4
89	–	Feng Chia University	Taiwan	12.7	17.7	41.4	23.3
90	–	City University London	UK	23.1	24.1	7.0	22.9
91	–	Concordia University	Canada	20.7	19.1	14.2	22.6
92	–	University of Bradford	UK	22.4	21.3	8.4	22.4
93	–	RMIT University	Australia	21.4	15.5	12.3	22.1
94	–	King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals	Saudi Arabia	31.2	14.7	6.6	21.8
95	–	National Yang-Ming University	Taiwan	35.4	22.4	8.7	21.7
96	–	Mansoura University	Egypt	12.3	7.5	42.3	21.0
97	–	University of Limerick	Republic of Ireland	21.2	22.2	4.8	20.3
98	–	National University of Malaysia	Malaysia	23.2	13.8	14.2	20.0
99	–	São Paulo State University	Brazil	30.0	20.6	8.0	19.9
100	–	Edith Cowan University	Australia	15.4	13.9	11.6	19.8
SOURCE: TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION

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