By Li Hongmei

Chinese Tsinghua University and Peking University rank 1st and 2nd respectively among the top-rated universities of the BRICS group of countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), according to a survey held by the Interfax international information group in cooperation with the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rating firm.

The rating techniques are similar to those used by QS in its global and regional universities rankings (QS World Universities Rankings, www.topuniersities.com; QS University Rankings: Asia, QS University Rankings: Latin America). The survey is based on the evaluation of the Scopus database, the world's largest citation database of peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources.

The top 100 best BRICS universities include 40 universities in China, 19 in Russia, 17 in India and 8 in South Africa.

The top 10 universities are:

1. Tsinghua University (China)

2. Peking University (China)

3. Moscow's Lomonosov State University (Russia)

4. Fudan University (China)

5. Nanjing University (China)

6. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)

7. University of Science and Technology of China

8. Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) (Brazil)

9. Zhejiang University (China)

10. Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Unicamp (Brazil)