LONDON -- The Chinese mainland topped the inaugural Times rankings of universities in the BRICS and emerging economies released Wednesday evening.

The rankings saw the Chinese mainland's Peking University and Tsinghua listed as number one and two. The third place was taken by the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

In total, the Chinese mainland claimed six spots in the top 20 rankings, 15 top 50, and 23 top 100 institutions. Taiwan, meanwhile, has 21 representatives. Indian institutions make up about 10 percent of the list, including nine top 50 places led by Panjab University in the 13th. Turkey performed well too, with seven universities in the top 100, including three in the top 10 and five in the top 20.

"China has emerged as the strongest higher education nation among the emerging economies," said Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education Rankings.

"This success comes as a result of clear political leadership and strong financial support for the academy, and should serve as a lesson for the rest of the world," he said. "It prioritized support for leading universities back in the 1990s and it is now seeing the benefits of that support."

He told Xinhua that China "perhaps provides a model for the other BRICS countries in terms of focused, generous funding to a selected group of leading institutions, backed by a strong campaign to attract international talent."

But according to the editor, there is still room for improvement. "Perhaps the final steps holding China back from true greatness in higher education are more autonomy for its universities, to allow them to be more flexible and dynamic in a global market, and further pedagogic reform, to encourage more creativity among the next generation of great scholars," he said.

This is world's first ranking for universities in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, plus other emerging economies.

Baty believed that ranking universities in this manner helps students to make more informed choices of where is best for them to study and achieve their academic goals. "In this important new exercise, we are giving visibility to many more strong institutions, and potentially many future stars of the overall global rankings," he said.

According to Baty, the ranking was based on the same methodology as the World University Rankings, with 13 performance indicators in five areas used. These areas included teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook.

Here is full list of the rankings: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/