On Nov 3, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) released the University Rankings for Asian Region 2027, based on 11 indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-to-student ratio, international research networks, average cited frequency per paper, average number of papers per faculty alongside proportion of faculty with PhDs, international faculty, international students, inbound exchange students, and outbound exchange students. A total of 1,722 universities in Asia were listed, with 448 from the Chinese mainland.

In the rankings, Hainan University (HNU) ranked 341st in Asia and 77th in the Chinese mainland, climbing 64 and 9 places, respectively, from 2026.