This year, the Asian university rankings expanded from 350 to 400 universities, of which, 250 top universities were ranked and the rest 150 were listed in such groups as 251-260, …, 291-300, 301-350 and 351- 400. Despite this expansion, compared with last year, Vietnam still had only 5 universities listed, with a big change at the bottom.

VNU, Hanoi has maintained its 139^th ranking, while VNU, Ho Chi Minh City climbed to 142^nd place.

The other three Vietnamese universities were grouped as follows: Hanoi University of Science and Technology went up from 301-350 to 291-300; Can Tho University dropped from 251-300 to 301-350; and Hue University fell from 301-350 to 351- 400.

According to QS statistics, VNU, Hanoi was listed in the top 1.2% of 11,900 universities from 17 Asian countries.

The 10 indicators used to compile the QS Asia University Rankings are as follows: Academic reputation (30%),  Employer reputation (20%), Faculty/student ratio (15%), Citations per paper (10%), Papers per faculty (10%), Staff with a PhD (5%), Proportion of international faculty (2.5%), Proportion of international students (2.5%), Proportion of inbound exchange students (2.5%) and proportion of outbound exchange students (2.5%).

According to Prof.Dr. Nguyễn Hữu Đức – VNU Vice President, except for the number of international publications, Vietnam's top universities had some indicators that could compare to the average of the top 400 universities in Asia. During the five-year (2011-2015) period, each Asian lecturer published an average of about 4.5 articles in the Scopus journal system, while Vietnam's highest reading index was only about 0.7 (only 0.14 paper per year). The ratio of faculty to student was close to the Asian average (Asia: 12.5 - VNU: 14.2). As for the average citation index of each article, Vietnam has surpassed the Asian threshold (Asia: 5.2 times/ article - VNU: 5.8 times). Especially, for the criteria directly evaluated by scientists and domestic and international employers (conducted via the online survey system), two leading universities in Vietnam both attained the average of Asia.

The top ten universities in Asia include: the best two universities from Singapore (Nanyang Technological University, the National University of Singapore), 1 from Korea (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), three from China (Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Peking University), and 4 from Hong Kong (China) (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong University, the University of Hong Kong, the City University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong).

From the ASEAN Community there were 27 universities from Malaysia, 17 from Indonesia, 14 from Thailand, 6 from the Philippines and 1 from Brunei.

In 2016, featured in the QS University Rankings: Asia, VNU was ranked 1^st in Vietnam, followed by Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (VNU, HCM) - 2nd, Can Tho University – 3rd, Hue University – 4th and Hanoi University of Science and Technology – 5th. VNU climbed to the 139^th place to feature among Asia’s top 150.