At 11:00 AM on August 15, 2020 (Vietnam time), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) announced the rankings of the best universities in the world in 2020. Vietnam has only one university, Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU), to continue to be in this table; ranked in the Top 701-800, an increase of at least 200 positions compared to 2019 (901-1000).

In the same group as TDTU, there are world-famous universities with a long history in academic excellence such as: The University of Waikato (ranked 6th in New Zealand), Università Della Svizzera Italiana (ranked 9th in Switzerland), Czech Technical University in Prague (Top 4 of Czech universities), Université Gustave Eiffel (Top 26 in France), Chulalongkorn University (Top 2 of the Thai university system), Chungnam National University (Republic of Korea, Top 24 of Korean universities), Aston University, Heriot-Watt University, City University London (Top 46-54 of the UK), Bielefeld University (Top 40-45 of Germany), Hong Kong Baptist University (Top 6 of Hong Kong), and the University of Jyvaskyla (Top 7 of the Finnish university system).

At the top of this year’s ranking are still the world's oldest and most prestigious universities. Harvard University (USA) tops the ranking list, the number two is Stanford University (USA), and the number three is the University of Cambridge (UK).

ARWU is recognized as the most prestigious, objective and difficult university ranking system in the world. The objectivity of the ARWU, compared to the table of QS (QS World University Rankings), THE (Times Higher Education), is based only on the capacity, the output of higher education institutions, and the success of the universities and learners, without using data from academic or corporate votes.

AWRU builds the assessment data of universities around the world based on the world's leading scientific databases, and does not depend on or require universities to provide data. The main evaluation criteria include: Education Quality (10%), Teacher Quality (40%), Scientific Research (40%) and Academic Productivity per capita (10%).

Since 2003, ARWU has published the annual world's top 500 universities based on a transparent approach and the use of third party data to provide the potential learners, parents, businesses, scientists and society objective information to choose universities for future investment or work. It is also an objective basis to help other universities to self-compare and to have solutions to complete their  development policies.

TDTU is the leading university in the university autonomy in Vietnam. Thanks to the autonomous pilot mechanism and the public university mechanism, while governed as the non-public university model, TDTU is ranked No. 1 in the Vietnamese university system and is among the Top 400 Universities in the world based on the ARWU Academic Group 2020 after just over 22 years of establishment and development; despite the fact that it is not funded by the State for recurrent and capital construction investment.

This is the most eloquent demonstration of the superiority and correctness of the policy of university autonomy in Vietnam so that the Party and the State will be more drastic in directing all levels to support university autonomy; and quickly pilot the removal of every law and regulation barrier to university autonomy. With the recent policy and condition supports from the Party and State, TDTU will surely grow stronger in the coming years and will contribute to making the Vietnam National Flag appear higher and more frequently in the system of world university ranking maps.

With the development trend as in the past 10 years, the University forecasts that within the next 3 years, TDTU will be in the Top 500 of the most excellent universities in the world according to ARWU.

There is a drop from Chulalongkorn University and Chiang Mai University of Thailand in this table. In contrast, Mahidol University, a university that focuses on the quality of education and applied research, has risen to become the number one university in Thailand. In the 1990s, former Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, when visiting Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, had a dream that someday, Vietnam would have universities of the same stature as Thai Royal Chulalongkorn University. From that idea, two national universities were established. Until now, TDTU, a public university that did not receive the budget, has fulfilled the dream of the former Prime Minister.