Japanese universities have moved up in the latest World University Rankings, which were announced on Wednesday.

In the annual world rankings released by Times Higher Education (THE), the University of Tokyo was ranked 29th ¡ª the highest a Japanese university has placed since 2015 and up from 39th in last year¡¯s rankings. Kyoto University also moved up to 55th from 68th, while Tohoku University advanced from 250th the previous year to 130th.

The improvement is due to a change in methodology this year, which included a new metric that bases evaluations on how often an institution¡¯s research is cited in patents. Kyoto University, Osaka University, the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Institute of Technology all ranked highly in this segment.

Other Japanese universities that made the top 400 worldwide include Nagoya University, Kyushu University, Hokkaido University and the the University of Tsukuba.

Institutions are ranked under five different performance indicators: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry and international outlook.

Rankings among Japanese universities remain low under the international outlook and research quality categories. The former evaluates an institution¡¯s capacity to attract international students, staff and research collaboration, while the latter measures citation impact and the university¡¯s research influence.

The rankings this year included 1,904 universities across 108 countries and regions, with the University of Oxford ranking first for the eighth year in a row. Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute for Technology moved up to second and third place respectively, bringing Harvard University down to fourth place.

Universities in Asia are on the rise. The top 20 included Tsinghua University and Peking University in China, as well as the National University of Singapore. The number of Chinese universities in the top 400 has doubled from 15 institutions in 2021 to 30 this year.

This year marked the second time since the rankings began in 2004 that THE significantly altered its evaluation methodology. The changes were made in an effort to better represent a diverse range of institutions and to be less U.S.-centric.

Japan has been working to improve the research output of its universities in recent years, with the education ministry having named Tohoku University as the first recipient of investment returns from a new ?10 trillion ($66.96 billion) endowment fund earlier this month.

The ministry also began efforts to bolster Japan¡¯s science and technology education earlier this year, having awarded 111 universities and technical colleges with funds to expand their science-related departments.