The UK Times Higher Education (THE) report has published the 2021 ranking of 1000 top universities in the world, and 18 universities in Taiwan has entered the list. Both Asia University (AU) and China Medical University (CMU) are in the list, with CMU being ranked No. 493 in the world, No. 5 in Taiwan, and No. 2 in the private universities; and AU being ranked No. 805 in the world, No. 10 in Taiwan, No. 3 in the private universities, and No. 1 in the non-medical private universities. Compared with the ranking of last year, AU has a progress of 37 places in the top 1000, which is the largest and the fastest progress among those of all the universities in Taiwan, although AU is the youngest university in Taiwan.

The Dean of R&D of AU, Prof. Mei-chin Yin, said that AU has continued to grow in the ratings of the five parameters of this THE ranking in this year, including teaching, research, paper citation rate, corporate cooperation income, and international reputation. Among these parameters, AU’s strongest achievements are the paper citation rate and international reputation, which have growths of more than 20 percent in value. As shown by the THE report, in Taiwan totally 38 universities are among the 1537 best universities from 93 countries around the world, and 18 universities are in the top 1000. By the way, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) also published the “2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities” in the last month, and both CMU and AU also enter the list of the top universities in the ranking, which clearly shows that the two universities have received international recognition. It is noted that the two universities, each being a sister university to each other, have allied to form a so-called China Asia Associated University, cooperating in teaching and research affairs and sharing resources of all aspects.

The President of AU, Prof. Jing-Pha Tsai, said that after opening four years ago, the Asia University Hospital (AUH) has cooperated with both the College of Medical and Health Science and the College of Information and Electrical Engineering at AU to conduct AI-based smart medicine research, and encouraged cross-field collaborated studies between the teachers of AU and the doctors of the AUH, such as the establishment of an automatic image interpretation system to assist nephrologists in the interpretation of lung X-ray examinations, the uses of AI to analyze abnormal fetal heart sounds and uterine contractions to save newborns who are dying from asphyxia, and the uses of the internet and AI technology to establish a face recognition system that can recognize the identity of the person wearing a mask. Furthermore, the 3D Printing Center at AU has won three national innovation awards in three years, which has become a school-running feature of AU, promoting the quality of students and improving the quality of teaching.

President Tsai also explained why AU can continue to improve in the world university rankings and is able to promote the students’ international mobility effectively. He said the main reason lies in the establishment of the nine major research centers of AU which cooperate intensively with foreign universities and companies. For example, the Artificial Intelligence Center and Precision Medicine Center at AU cooperates with Harvard University and the University of Missouri in the USA, and Kyoto University in Japan, etc.; the 3D Printing Center at AU cooperates with the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; and the Center for Innovation and Circular Economy at AU cooperates with the University of Michigan in the USA, the University of Nottingham in the UK, etc. Furthermore, more than 700 international students entered AU in this semester, pursuing respectively doctoral, master, and bachelor degrees in campus. At present, AU offers 30 courses taught in English to accelerate internationalization!

The Dean of the International College of AU, Prof. Ying-Huei Chen, said that to face the COVID-19 outbreak, AU has carried out a so-called “Virtual Exchange Student Program” in this semester. The program arranged 43 English online teaching courses and cooperated with AU’s sister schools in Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, etc., to offer online courses. The students of the cooperating schools may elect courses and learn online on the spot; and the sister schools and AU will accept each other’s credits after the students complete the coursework. It is worth mentioning that adopting an online teaching model, in this summer AU has attracted 927 students from 52 sister schools in 11 countries to take online courses offered by AU, including Tulane University, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Western Sydney University.