City University of Hong Kong is rated seventh among the top 10 Chinese universities in the Greater China area, covering the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. In the same study by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, CityU ranks 332 in the top 500 universities worldwide, the third highest Hong Kong institution on the list.

"This is surely a major boost for us, recognizing CityU, with a relatively short history of 20 years, as one of the major league institutions internationally," said Professor H K Chang, CityU's President. "It is also a strong testimony to the growing reputation of Hong Kong as a hub of quality higher education in the region."

The survey, the first of its kind by a Chinese research institution, compares the academic standing of universities worldwide by assessing their academic or research performance.

Two years in the making, the study rates universities according to five world-recognized categories of academic or research performance indicators: the number of Nobel Laureates, highly cited researchers, of articles published in journals Nature and Science, the frequency of papers appearing in the Science Citation Index-expanded (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index, and academic performance by faculty. Each of these categories is given a 20% weighting for a total score of 100.