In the 2026 university rankings of the Times Higher Education (THE) and QS World University Rankings, only one city has five institutions in the global top 100 — the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
This remarkable achievement results from decades of deliberate HKSAR choices. For a city of 7.5 million to equate with much larger economies in this domain is extraordinary. Why has this happened, what is it doing for Hong Kong, and how easily could it be lost?
Several factors explain this success. First is internationalization, baked into the city’s DNA across trade, finance, regulation, and the higher education system for decades. English is the global language and a common medium of instruction. There is also a long tradition of recruiting faculty and students from every continent, which creates an enriching, cross-cultural scholarly environment instantly legible to East and West. This makes the city’s universities natural partners for collaboration with other globally elite institutions from the Ivy League to Oxbridge and from Tsinghua to Peking universities. This global connectivity is self-reinforcing and has translated directly into co-authored papers, joint laboratories, leveraged projects, and international funding streams that greatly influence metrics used by global ranking agencies.
Next is sustained investment in research and infrastructure, the bedrock on which this international success is based. The HKSAR government treats our universities as strategic assets not luxuries, with largescale research grant programs, significant postgraduate places, and modern laboratories. These allow local institutions to specialize and excel across broad swathes in strategic, scientific, technical, and cultural domains. These include biomedicine, fintech, artificial intelligence, materials science, creative media, and emerging areas such as space sciences via participation in Chinese mainland space missions. The ecosystem’s strength means multinational companies set up research and development operations here to tap into our concentrated expertise and talent.
Then there is Hong Kong’s unique superconnector status as a bridge between the mainland and the world. The city’s universities simultaneously plug into national initiatives like the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area while remaining deeply embedded in international networks of scholarship and innovation. A laboratory in Hong Kong can collaborate with colleagues in Shenzhen while joining a European science consortium or an internationally funded research project. This dual connectivity is difficult to replicate and is part of the intangible “value-add” that rankings attempt to capture.
Our universities drive transition from a trading and financial hub toward a full knowledge-based economy. Highly skilled graduates feed into local industries, spinoffs populate science parks, while patents and startups contribute to diversification beyond property and finance. In a world of mobile talent a strong university system is both magnet and glue, attracting capable international talent while giving them reasons to stay beyond cuisine, nightlife, pace, and world-class infrastructure.
Our impact is felt in less tangible, but equally important ways too, via soft power. When parents in Southeast Asia, the Chinese mainland, the Middle East, and elsewhere encourage their children to apply to Hong Kong universities, when top global scientists accept chairs here — including the recent recruitment of two Nobel Physics laureates to the University of Hong Kong — it is a tribute to our reliability, quality, and openness. Each graduate who returns home, each international research publication that bears the city’s name, extends our influence. When increased geopolitical complexity elicits contested narratives about Hong Kong, the noble and apolitical work of its universities provides a powerful counterpoint, helping to anchor our reputation in concrete achievements.
Hong Kong’s universities rise to the global peak has profoundly shaped our identity and expanded our options. It has bolstered our economic prospects, enhanced our soft power, and provided a powerful symbol of what being “Asia’s world city” really means
Nevertheless, success brings challenges, not least the temptation to treat ranking schemes as both compass and destination. Global league tables like the QS and THE provide external benchmarks, stimulating healthy competition, and elevating the international visibility of top institutions. However, their methodologies are not neutral. An overreliance on these schemes risks encouraging universities to optimize for the scoreboard rather than needs of the nation. Rankings matter for perceived prestige, student recruitment, international partnerships, funding, and philanthropic donations. Our universities must continue to perform strongly against global benchmarks, while developing richer, internal measures of success: How effectively do they contribute to the Greater Bay Area’s innovation agenda? How deeply are they involved in solving Hong Kong’s own challenges in public health, aging, inequality, and sustainability? How well do they nurture not just employable graduates, but thoughtful, globally aware citizens?
Maintaining this balance requires work. Protecting the conditions that enable world-class research is essential. This includes stable funding, institutional autonomy, transparent governance, and space for open, evidence-based academic inquiry, free of undue pressure and influence. The appeal of Hong Kong’s universities rests on the perception that scholars can pursue rigorous research and teaching to international standards. Safeguarding this is fundamental to attracting the best global minds.
Our universities also need to deepen mainland integration with its rapidly advancing science and technology landscape but without losing our distinctiveness under the “one country, two systems” framework. Competition from Beijing, Shanghai and the Greater Bay Area is intensifying, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The smart response is not to retreat, but to pursue areas where our mix of a robust, common law legal framework, superb international connectivity, and strong academic culture provides an edge, enabling symbiotic global and mainland partnerships that create mutual value.
We must see our universities as serving the community, not just chasing rankings or catering to elites. That means greater engagement with schools, local industry, government, and civil society. It means ensuring our world-class research translates into better healthcare, smarter infrastructure, more resilient urban areas, and broader social mobility. When the average Hong Kong family sees tangible benefits from having five top-100 universities, sector support becomes more resilient. Over 70 percent of Hong Kong’s university funding comes from the SAR government, leaving institutions vulnerable to policy shifts. By comparison, Harvard’s endowment exceeds Hong Kong’s combined university reserves by a factor of 10. Diversifying university revenue through alumni networks and industry partnerships is critical.
Hong Kong’s universities rise to the global peak has profoundly shaped our identity and expanded our options. It has bolstered our economic prospects, enhanced our soft power, and provided a powerful symbol of what being “Asia’s world city” really means. This is neither guaranteed nor cost-free. To preserve and build on it, we need to resist complacency, engage intelligently and hold fast to openness, excellence, and outward-looking confidence that brought us this far. Our universities are more than educational institutions; they are custodians of our global identity. Their success has fortified our role as a bridge between China and the international order, a role that benefits Beijing as much as it does foreign partners. Bridges require maintenance. We must evolve our academic model without eroding the openness that made it great. In the laboratory, as in life, complacency is the enemy of excellence.
The author is director of the Laboratory for Space Research, the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
