Hong Kong’s universities have improved their course offerings substantially in the past year as more than half the subjects taught at the city’s tertiary institutions have risen in the world rankings. According to Quacquarelli Symonds, six programmes provided by two universities in the territory made the global top 10 in their respective fields this year, which is two more than in 2024. The UK-based education firm assessed 231 courses from nine Hong Kong institutions, and found that 181 bettered their positions from last year.
Local Universities Score High in Latest Global Rankings
According to the 2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject, the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) Dentistry course is the second-best in the world, while its Education, Linguistics, and Geography took the third, ninth, and tenth places in their respective categories. Additionally, 39 other HKU programmes found places in the global top 50.
Several of the territory’s other top-tier colleges also had impressive showings. The Chinese University of Hong Kong has two academic offerings in the top 10 — Nursing (No. 5) and Linguistics (No. 10) — and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University had seven programmes in the top 30. Four of the City University of Hong Kong’s subjects made it to the top 50, and its Veterinary Science course entered the top 100 ranking for the first time.
Asian Institutions Gain Ground in Subject Ratings
This year’s edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject is the most comprehensive as it evaluated more than 21,000 courses at more than 1,700 universities across 100 countries and territories in 55 subjects and five faculty areas. Places like Hong Kong, Mainland China and South Korea also saw marked improvements in their standings. The firm noted that the SAR is among the top higher education centres in the world for data science and artificial intelligence, with five universities that provide these programmes figuring among the top 50.
Image credits: University of Hong Kong
