Vishwakarma University in India was crowned Leadership and Management of the Year at the fifth annual Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia in Hong Kong earlier today.
With a 19 year history in the UK and Ireland, and widely known as the ‘Oscars of higher education’, the awards are now fully established in Asia too, celebrating outstanding work across a wide range of university functions – covering academia, leadership and management, and the professional services – and crucially, they tell the inspirational stories that rankings cannot capture.
The full list of this year’s winners are:
- Leadership and Management Team of the Year: Vishwakarma University, India
- Excellence and Innovation in the Arts: Naresuan University, Thailand
- Teaching and Learning Strategy of the Year: University of Hong Kong, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, Hong Kong
(Highly commended: Ahmedabad University, India) - Outstanding Contribution to Regional Development: Taylor’s University, Malaysia
- Outstanding Support for Students: Tokyo University of Science, Japan
(Highly commended: Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University, Thailand) - International Strategy of the Year: Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
- Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership: Abdullah Gül University, Turkey
- Workplace of the Year: Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea
- Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year: Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India
- Student Recruitment Campaign of the Year: Lingnan University, Hong Kong
(Highly commended: Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey)
It was Vishwakarma University’s powerful commitment to the public good – not always a priority for private universities – that impressed the judges and confirmed the difficult decision to declare it the winner in a highly competitive category, Leadership and Management Team of the Year.
In another record year for entries nearly 700, from more than 220 institutions representing over 20 countries and territories, Hong Kong was the biggest winner with three institutions taking home prizes. This was followed by Indian universities, with two wins and one highly commended entry. Thailand and Turkey achieved one win and one highly commended entry each. Japan, Malaysia and South Korea had one win each.
Phil Baty, THE’s chief global affairs officer said:
“I hope I’m not tempting fate when I say that we can now see the higher education landscape returning to, if not normality after the Covid-19 pandemic, then certainly a new reality, with many of the lessons learned over the past few years being implemented to great effect.
“THE Awards Asia – now fully established on the continent and coveted by institutions in all corners – has been a distinct beneficiary of this rapid evolution: we received another record number of entries this year, many of which were both outstanding and inspirational.
“So, it was an incredibly difficult task to select 10 winners from such a deep pool of excellence, but our esteemed panel of external judges finally agreed on those you see here – absolutely outstanding performers all.”
Hundreds of finalists from all corners of the continent gathered in Hong Kong for a glittering ceremony that closed the first day of Times Higher Education Asia Universities Summit.
Profiles of the winning entries can be viewed here and abridged versions of all finalists’ submissions can be found in THE Awards Asia 2023 archive. Read our THE Awards Asia news story here.
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