CityU in the "young university" rankings — THE Young University Rankings and the "under-50" tables

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a fixture in the global young-university rankings: it finished 4th in THE Young University Rankings 2024 — its best result ever among 673 entrants^※ — making the global top 10 for the eighth consecutive year; it ranked 8th globally in the QS "Under 50" table in its 2024 edition; and THE has since announced a hiatus for the series in 2025.

This article looks at the dedicated "young university" tables — a yardstick that measures something different from the overall league tables. It asks only who is running fastest among peers of a similar age, which happens to fit CityU's "small, focused and young" positioning narrative. For the year-by-year trends and methodologies of the comprehensive tables (QS, THE, U.S. News, ARWU), see world rankings overview and the four major rankings methodologies.

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# How old is CityU, and how is "young" eligibility calculated?

CityU's "age" has two possible starting points, and getting this straight is essential to reading the various tables correctly.

CityU's predecessor, the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, was formally established on 1 January 1984^※, admitting its first cohort of about 480 full-time and 680 part-time students that October. In 1994, the institution was elevated to university status and formally renamed the City University of Hong Kong^※. The THE Young University Rankings sets its eligibility threshold at institutions founded within 50 years of the year of assessment — for the 2024 edition, that meant institutions established after 1974^※ — and CityU, founded in 1984, qualifies comfortably. The QS "Under 50" series works on the same principle, counting back 50 years from the release year of the corresponding QS World University Rankings edition. CityU will therefore remain eligible at least until the mid-2030s (reckoned from 1984). One notable sidelight: the University of Hong Kong (1911) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1963) have both aged out of these tables, making CityU's "young" status a distinctive competitive asset among Hong Kong institutions.

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# What is the THE Young University Rankings, and how does it work?

The THE Young University Rankings is a specialist ranking from Times Higher Education (THE) covering institutions aged "50 and under". It uses exactly the same indicator set as the flagship World University Rankings (WUR), but with recalibrated weights — the core adjustment being "a reduced weighting on reputation, to better reflect the mission profile of younger universities"^※.

THE Young University Rankings 2024 — the five pillar weights:

(Per the official THE Young University Rankings 2024 methodology^※)

The biggest difference from the main table is the move away from reputation. In THE's main table, the "teaching reputation" and "research reputation" survey components together account for roughly a third of the total score; in the young-university table that weight is cut down, reducing the halo effect that long-established names enjoy. For institutions only a few decades old, objective research data says more about real competitiveness than "brand prestige" — which is also why some young universities place far higher in this specialist table than in THE's overall rankings.

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# How has CityU fared in the THE Young University Rankings over the years?

CityU has made the THE young-university global top 10 for eight consecutive years since 2017^※, with the last three editions showing a clear upward trajectory — from 10th in 2022 and 6th in 2023 to an all-time best of 4th in 2024.

THE Young University Rankings — CityU's positions over time (verified):

CityU rose two places from 2023 to 2024. President Freddy Boey, in the official press release^※, said: 「CityUHK rose to No. 4 for the first time in THE Best Young Universities ranking and is once again ranked in the top 10 best young universities globally.」 ("CityU has, for the first time, risen to 4th place in THE's Best Young Universities ranking, and is once again among the top 10 best young universities globally.")

Three indicator highlights from 2024 (THE young-university table):

(Per CityU's official press release of 14 May 2024)

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# Who made the THE 2024 young-university top 10, and how many Hong Kong institutions made the list?

In the THE Young University Rankings 2024 top 10^※, three Hong Kong universities appear — the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 3rd, CityU in 4th, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in 7th — a density rarely matched by any other region. The full top 10:

(Per the official THE Young University Rankings 2024 results announcement^※)

Hong Kong holds 3rd, 4th and 7th on this table. In contrast, HKU and CUHK — being older — are not eligible. In other words, the young-university tables are precisely the arena where CityU competes head-to-head with HKUST and PolyU, without having to share the table with HKU and CUHK — and on this yardstick, CityU stands very high indeed.

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# Why does CityU perform better in the young-university tables than in the overall rankings?

This is the key question for understanding CityU's ranking profile. There is a striking gap between CityU's position in THE's main table (73rd in the 2026 edition) and in the young-university table (4th in the 2024 edition). Part of that is simply the pool: the former pits CityU against more than 2,000 universities worldwide, the latter against just 673 schools "under 50". But the deeper cause lies in the weighting structure:

The "age bias" of reputation weight. Reputation surveys carry substantial weight in THE's main table, and long-established names naturally fare better in surveys of academics and employers. The young-university table's downweighting of reputation raises the relative importance of "hard data" — research output, citation impact, internationalisation ratios — which are precisely the areas CityU has built up through heavy research investment in recent years.

CityU's two "full-mark" calling cards count for extra in this table. CityU has held the top spot with a perfect score for years in the "Industry" pillar of THE's main table^※, and has been No. 1 in Hong Kong for eight consecutive years in "International Outlook"^※ — both translate directly into high marks in the young-university table as well, and with the competitor pool narrowed to 673, the relative advantage shows even more.

Being lean is an advantage. Many ranking indicators — internationalisation, citations per paper, student-to-staff ratio — are essentially ratio metrics: they measure proportions of the whole rather than absolute scale. CityU's moderate size, high degree of internationalisation and high per-capita research output all work in its favour on ratio indicators. The young-university table's narrower eligibility pool lets that advantage shine through.

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# How does CityU fare in the QS "Under 50" table, and how does it differ from THE's approach?

QS runs its young-university table independently of THE, and the methodologies differ. QS applies the same six indicators as its main QS World University Rankings — academic reputation, citations per faculty member, employer reputation, faculty-to-student ratio, international faculty ratio and international student ratio — and ranks all institutions that meet the "under 50" criterion separately. Reputation survey weight is therefore retained, in contrast to the THE young-university table's de-emphasis of reputation.

CityU's verified results in the QS "Under 50" table:

(CityU's QS young-university trajectory cross-checked against the studyin.hk compilation^※ and the Wikipedia article on CityU^※; QS's own website requires a login for full historical editions, making older year data hard to obtain publicly)

On the QS table, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has led the "Under 50" ranking for years^※, with HKUST firmly in second. CityU's QS position (8th in 2024) is a little lower than its THE position (4th in 2024), and the root cause is QS's heavier reputation weight — in surveys of academics worldwide, HKUST, though founded only in 1991, enjoys a strong reputation built over decades of work in science and engineering.

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# THE paused the "young university" rankings in 2025 — what does that mean?

THE has announced it is suspending the Young University Rankings, with the official statement citing "a review of how we present overall rankings data on our website, including university ages and other characteristics"^※.

In practice, this makes 2024 the last edition of the table for now with an official, citable result — and CityU's 4th place will stand as its achievement on this table for the foreseeable future. Whether THE will revive the series, and in what form, is not yet on any official timetable. THE's main table (the World University Rankings) and its other specialist tables (subjects, international, industry, etc.) are unaffected and continue on their usual schedule.

For anyone citing CityU's ranking from here on, the practical point is this: the figure should be labelled "4th in the THE Young University Rankings 2024 edition (THE's final published edition)" rather than loosely "CityU ranks 4th in THE's young-university table" — without the edition and status made clear, the claim invites misinterpretation.

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# What other authoritative "young university" references exist?

Beyond THE and QS, other bodies also publish supplementary assessments of universities by age, and CityU features prominently in those too.

Nature Index Young Universities (2025 edition):

In late 2025, Nature Portfolio's Nature Index released its "Nature Index Young Universities Supplement 2025"^※. The table covers universities aged 50 and under, measuring their article output and contribution share across 145 leading natural-science and health-science journals (including the Nature series, Science and Cell), using 2020–2024 data. CityU's positions:

The Nature Index methodology differs sharply from the THE/QS young-university tables: it looks only at publication output in top science journals, with no teaching, reputation or internationalisation components — a purely quantitative measure of research output. Across all three "young university" yardsticks, CityU lands in the global top five to top ten, mutually corroborating its objective standing in the top tier of young universities.

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# A few rules of thumb for reading these rankings

A few cross-checks will help avoid misreading CityU's young-university performance:

1. Different methodologies, different ranks. Both claimed to measure "young universities", yet THE (de-emphasising reputation) and QS (retaining reputation weight) score CityU differently — THE 4th and QS 8th in 2024, a gap driven by reputation weight, not by the university itself.
2. Specialist and overall tables cannot be stacked directly. CityU's 4th in THE's young-university table does not mean it is 4th in THE's overall table (where it actually stands 73rd). The pools differ; the figures cannot be conflated.
3. A suspended table does not erase an achievement. THE's 2025 decision to suspend the young-university series is an internal operational call, unrelated to CityU. CityU's 4th place in 2024 still stands — but unless a new edition appears, the figure will simply age over time.
4. Three corroborating yardsticks are more credible. THE 4th (2024), QS 8th (2024) and Nature Index 4th (2025) — three different methodologies all place CityU in the global top 10 of young universities; they reinforce one another.
5. The "young" qualification has a shelf life. Counting from CityU's 1984 founding, it will pass the "under 50" threshold around 2034 (depending on each table's cutoff year), at which point it will automatically drop out of these specialist tables. Its performance while the youth advantage window lasts is one of the most noteworthy ranking narratives in CityU's recent history.

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