Although Western saw no movement in its ranking, signs inside the numbers continue to trend upward for the university when it comes to the Times Higher Education magazine’s World University Rankings, according to 2017 numbers released Wednesday. Western remained ranked No. 201-250 among the world’s top universities, according to the magazine. (Only ranges, no specific rankings are given beyond No. 200 on the list).
The University of Toronto was the highest ranking Canadian institution at No. 22, down from No. 19 last year. U of T led a trend of Top 100 Canadian institutions tumbling year-to-year as the University of British Columbia (No. 36, down from No. 34) and McGill University (No. 42, down from No. 38) also slid. These were the only three Canadian schools to crack the Top 100.
The remaining Canadian institutions in the Top 250 included the University of Montreal (No. 103, up from No. 113), University of Alberta (No. 107, up from No. 137), McMaster University (No. 113, down from No. 94), University of Waterloo (No. 173, up from No. 179), University of Calgary (No. 195, up from No. 201-250), Queen’s University, Simon Fraser University and Western (No. 201-250).
The Times Higher Education rankings use four main indicators – teaching, research, citations and international outlook. Western saw its year-to-year scores rise in teaching, research and citations and maintain in international outlook. Over the last five years, Western has seen its international outlook score grow by nearly a third and its citations score nearly double.
Overall, the ranking lightly shuffled the Top 10 to keep things newsworthy.
The University of Oxford became the first U.K. institution to top the rankings in their 12-year history, by knocking “five-time leader” California Institute of Technology out of the top spot to No. 2. Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Princeton University, Imperial College London, ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley and University of Chicago, respectively, rounded out the Top 10 – all unchanged from last year with the lone exception of Berkeley rising to a tie at No. 10 from No. 13.
When looking at country level, nations in Asia stand out. Two new Asian universities make the Top 100, while another four join the Top 200. Furthermore, China’s two flagship universities made gains – Peking University (No. 29, up from No. 42) joined the Top 30 and Tsinghua University (No. 35, up from No. 47) joined the Top 40. Asia’s leading institution, the National University of Singapore was at No. 24 – its highest ever rank.
Overall, 289 Asian universities from 24 countries make the list of 980 institutions and an elite group of 19 are in the Top 200, up from 15 last year.