32 Canadian universities in top 1,000 ranking

A new global ranking has measured the quality of 1,000 universities.

The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, assessed schools using data on: the proportions of alumni and faculty who have won major international awards; the proportions of alumni who are CEOs of the top 2,000 companies (according to Forbes); and other factors. According to CWUR’s Nadim Mahassen, this is superior to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings approach, which is based partially on reputation surveys, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which leans heavily on scientific publications.

CWUR’s top 10 are all in the U.S. and U.K., as is the case for the other two major global rankings. The top five are Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Cambridge and Oxford.

Thirty-two Canadian schools made the list, compared to 229 for the U.S., 84 for China, 74 for Japan, 64 for the U.K., 55 for Germany, 50 for France, 47 for Italy, 41 for Spain, 34 for South Korea and 27 for Australia.

The top three in Canada are the University of Toronto (31), McGill University (42) and the University of British Columbia (61). They are also the top three in Canada on the Times and ARWU lists and in the Maclean’s University Rankings Medical Doctoral category.

Maclean’s University Rankings consider reputation surveys, research funding, student support and much more. Maclean’s places universities in one of three categories—Medical Doctoral, Comprehensive and Primarily Undergraduate—to recognize differences in types of institutions, levels of research funding, diversity of offerings, and breadth and depth of graduate and professional programs.

Here’s how Canada’s schools ranked in the CWUR report compared to the ARWU, Times rankings and Maclean’s rankings. Medical Doctoral schools are tagged as MD, Comprehensive as C and Primarily Undergraduate as PU. Asterisks indicate ties.

[rdm-footable id=’67’]