Japanese universities have moved up in the latest World University Rankings, which were announced on Wednesday.
In the annual world rankings released by Times Higher Education (THE), the University of Tokyo was ranked 29th — the highest a Japanese university has placed since 2015 and up from 39th in last year’s rankings. Kyoto University also moved up to 55th from 68th, while Tohoku University advanced from 250th the previous year to 130th.
The improvement is due to a change in methodology this year, which included a new metric that bases evaluations on how often an institution's research is cited in patents. Kyoto University, Osaka University, the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Institute of Technology all ranked highly in this segment.