Times Higher Education ranks University of Toronto twenty-second in the world

Times Higher Education released its newest rankings report this month, placing the University of Toronto twenty-second out of 978 international institutions. The current ranking is three-spots below U of T’s placement in last year’s report.

Northwestern University and the University of Michigan’s rise in rankings this year meant that the University of Toronto did not make the elusive ‘top 20’.

U of T is one of three Canadian institutions to rank in the world’s top 100, alongside the University of British Columbia (UBC) and McGill University, both of which also experienced a fall in their respective positions this year. UBC currently stands at thirty-sixth in the world, while McGill University is ranked forty-second; the universities are down two and four ranks respectively compared to last year’s report.

Despite the fall in global rankings, U of T retained its position as the top ranked university in Canada for the seventh year running.

Times Higher Education also published its annual subject-specific rankings list, with the University of Toronto dropping in ranks across several disciplines, including arts and humanities, life sciences, and engineering and technology.

The latest edition of rankings revealed a downward trend for Canadian universities collectively as several institutions in China, Singapore, and Hong Kong climbed up the list. Both UBC and McGill were overtaken in this year’s rankings by Tsinghua University and Peking University in China, which ranked at 35 and 29 respectively.

The National University of Singapore also jumped two spots up in the high-profile rankings, coming in just two levels below the University of Toronto at number 24.

The upward performance of several Asian institutions in international rankings is largely due to an increase in investment in higher education across that continent. China, for example, has invested heavily in its own higher education system in recent years, with the government allocating $2.2 billion USD into the education sector as part of the country’s latest Five Year Plan.

The Times Higher Education university rankings judge institutions based on 13 performance indicators that fall under five weighted categories, including teaching at 30 per cent, research at 30 per cent, citations at 30 per cent, international outlook at 7.5 per cent and industry income at 2.5 per cent.

Earlier in September, U of T was ranked second in Canada in the QS World University Rankings and first in the Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities.