Five Taiwan universities were ranked among the top 500 schools in terms of scientific papers globally on a list published Wednesday by the Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT). The five schools are National Taiwan University at 114th on the list, National Cheng Kung University at 302nd, National Tsing Hua University at 346th, National Chiao Tung University at 479th and Chang Gung University at 493rd. 'If the number of teachers at the schools is taken into consideration, NTU would break into the top 100, at 87th, ' said Huang Mu-hsuan, a researcher at the council. The HEEACT rated the performance of more than 800 universities worldwide based on the quality and quantity of their scientific papers and it also separately ranked fields of study and subject areas. Harvard University remained at the top of the world rankings, followed by Stanford, John Hopkins, University of Washington-Seattle and University of California-Los Angeles. NTU continued to lead in overall performance among universities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, Huang said. 'However, Taiwan universities ranked lower than last year, ' she said. 'But this could be a turning point as they might pay more attention to the quality of their research papers.' The HEEACT has been presenting the annual top 500 university rankings since 2007. 