Leading global cryptocurrency exchange CoinDesk has unveiled its annual ranking of the Top Universities for Blockchain, which includes this year’s prestigious schools.
While Asian colleges continue to dominate the rankings, European universities are gaining ground.
It was revealed in a blog post published by the cryptocurrency platform that the National University of Singapore had taken the top spot, with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, University of Zurich, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rounding out the top five.
The Singapore National University earned the top rank thanks to its numerous blockchain research centers, frequent blockchain-themed conferences, clubs, industry partnerships, and a master’s program in digital financial technology offered by its School of Business.
Sample size increased
The sample size for this year’s rating has been increased to include 230 international academic institutions, as opposed to only American schools in the previous year’s ranking.
In addition to cost, academic reputation, research output, blockchain offerings on campuses such as student groups and research centers, courses, and employment outcomes are included in the rating.
Three more Asian institutions reached the list of the top 10, including Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Tsinghua University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Australia is represented by the RMIT of Melbourne, while Europe’s University of Zurich, UCL and ETH Zurich made joined the new list.
Highly-stacked list
Berkeley came in third and MIT fifth among American colleges, whereas Cornell, which came in second last year, came in 17th this year, and Stanford, which came in fourth in 2020, came in 12th for this year.
Harvard plummeted to 49th place from 5th place the previous year. According to CoinDesk, the drop is the result of “intense competition,” as well as the fact that schools with excellent overall reputations aren’t always the best performers when it comes to blockchain”
European universities, on average, have the second-highest scores, followed by schools in the U.S. CoinDesk said Australian and Asian universities took the regional lead with an average scaled score of 63 points.
European universities, on the other hand, came in second with an average scaled score of 60 points, while American and Canadian universities came in third with an average score of 59 points.
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