THE Awards Asia 2020
"Times Higher Education is renowned across the globe for its World University Rankings, but data cannot capture everything that is great about a university, and they cannot always identify focused or niche pockets of excellent practice inside an institution as complex and multifaceted as a university.
It was because of the great depth and diversity of Asian higher education that we chose to launch our first overseas awards on the continent in 2019, following 15 years showcasing excellence in the UK, where our awards event is widely known as the sector’s “Oscars”.
In this second year, with twice as many categories and hundreds of entries coming in from across the continent, we were once again hugely impressed by the quality of the submissions, and ultimately those selected as winners are very worthy of the spotlight THE is delighted to give them."
– Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer, THE
The winners were announced during a virtual ceremony on 17 November 2020.
Below are the shortlists and winning entries, and here you will find an e-book profiling all the winners .
Watch the full virtual ceremony
Excellence and Innovation in the Arts
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts (winner)
Peking University, Research Centre for Ethnic Music and Musical Theatre
International Strategy of the Year
Sponsored by Western Union Business Solutions
King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, UNIMAS Global
Southern University of Science and Technology (winner)
Tianjin University, International Engineering Institute
Outstanding Leadership and Management Team
Sponsored by Elsevier
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Beijing University of Technology
Tsinghua University (winner)
Outstanding Support for Students
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur
Katalyst, in collaboration with the College of Engineering Pune (winner)
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences
Singapore Institute of Technology
Vellore Institute of Technology
Regional or Societal Impact Award
This category did not require institutions to send in submissions. The shortlist is compiled after analysis of data collected by Times Higher Education for our suite of rankings, but reveal interesting and important aspects of university performance that are not part of our published rankings results.
For this Regional or Societal Impact Award, we examined the scores from the inaugural 2019 edition of the THE Impact Ranking in the three specific SDG areas that saw the most university entries from the continent.
Alfaisal University
Hanyang University
King Abdulaziz University
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Kyung Hee University
Soochow University
Sungkyunkwan University (winner)
The University of Tokyo
Student Recruitment Campaign of the Year
Sponsored by The Access Platform
Independent University, Bangladesh
National University of Sciences & Technology
National University of Singapore
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (winner)
Southern University of Science and Technology
Teaching and Learning Strategy of the Year
An-Najah National University (winner)
Ho Chi Minh City Open University
National Taipei University of Education
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Singapore Management University
Technological Innovation of the Year
Sponsored by Coursera
Heriot-Watt University Malaysia
Singapore Institute of Technology
Tsinghua University (winner)
THE DataPoints Merit Award
This category did not require institutions to send in submissions. The shortlist is compiled after analysis of data collected by Times Higher Education for our suite of rankings, but reveal interesting and important aspects of university performance that are not part of our published rankings results.
For this THE DataPoints Merit Award, we dug into the data underlying the THE World University Rankings to look for Asian universities that could be considered to be “unsung heroes” – those whose research excellence outpaces the recognition of their strength among the 10,000+ academics polled across the globe in our annual Reputation Survey.
American University of Beirut
Hunan University
King Abdulaziz University (winner)
Nankai University
Soochow University
Southern University of Science and Technology
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology
University of the Philippines
Workplace of the Year
Beijing University of Technology