News

Ranking McGill: First in Canada, 21st in the world

Published: 7 October 2006

McGill's international reputation as Canada's flagship university has been soundly reaffirmed by the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement's World University Rankings. "McGill's breadth and international reach make it the most visible of Canada's institutions," noted the rankings report.

Every year since the THES annual rankings of the world's 200 best universities were launched in 2004, McGill has been the only Canadian school to appear among the top 25 in the world, moving from 24th in 2005 to 21st in this year's rankings. The University of Toronto is 27th and the University of British Columbia is 50th. Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge were first, second and third. In North America, McGill ranked 12th, ahead of Johns Hopkins, UCLA and NYU.

"This is most welcome news for McGill and for Canadians," said McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum. "Such international recognition underscores the fact that our superbly talented students and faculty, and our internationally significant teaching and research programs at McGill, consistently combine to weigh in as greater than the sum of the parts. We take pride in the special international reputation and position of McGill as an entirely fitting tribute to our remarkable faculty, staff and students."

The THES annual rankings are compiled based on a list of qualitative and quantitative criteria. Forty percent of the score is allotted based on peer review carried out among academics, ten percent to recruiter review, five percent each to international faculty and international students, 20 percent to faculty/student ratio and 20 percent to faculty citations. McGill's most notable gains over last year's rankings were in the peer review (57 from 52), recruiter review (61 from 48) and faculty-to-student ratio (52 from 23) categories.

The Times Higher Education Supplement is owned by TSL Education, formerly a division of News International, owners of the Times of London. In October 2005, it was sold to a private equity group and now operates independently from the Times.

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