McGill remains among the world’s top universities according to the Time Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings released on September 27. THE’s annual rankings rates McGill at 49th globally, marking the 14th consecutive year the University has been in the top 50 worldwide.
This is the most rigorous and wide-reaching edition in the 20-year history of the THE World University Rankings. A record 1,904 universities from across 108 countries and regions were included in this year’s list. The ranking analysed more than 134 million citations across 16.5 million research publications and included survey responses from 68,402 scholars globally.
THE updated its methodology, measuring institutions across 18 performance indicators – up from 13 in 2022. These performance indicators are grouped into the following five areas:
- Teaching (the learning environment);
- Research environment (volume, income, and reputation);
- Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence, and research influence);
- International outlook (staff, students, and research);
- Industry (income and patents).
While McGill slipped to 49th overall from 46th last year, the University’s scores improved in four of five areas including teaching, industry, research quality, and international outlook. The University’s score for research environment this year was virtually tied with the previous year.
McGill has enjoyed a fair degree of rankings success in 2023, with strong showings in the following rankings:
- In August, the University moved up in the Academic Ranking of World Universities
- In June, McGill improved its position in the QS World University Rankings
- In May, McGill climbed to 26th in the Center for World University Ranking’s annual Global 2000 Rankings.
- In March, McGill had three subjects ranked in the global Top 10 and 28 in the top 50, in the QS World University Rankings by Subject.
- In January, McGill placed 29th in the world and first in Canada in the Times Higher Education’s Most International Universities in the World.
Consult the Time Higher Education World University Rankings
McGill is clearly on the decline. International rankings are showing that each year. And at 49th place, McGill’s peer universities, as it declines, are those more of the likes of Karolinska Institute, Delft University of Technology, University of Manchester, and Chinese University of Hong Kong, and more of the “but it doesn’t ring a bill to me” type of schools. Barely 11 years ago, the same ranking placed McGill at 12th place, along the likes of Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Cambridge, and other top-notch schools. One thing that is evident at McGill is the declining quality of its students, particularly since… Read more »
It’s an utter shame that McGill University is constantly celebrating its decline during the past decade, moreover that it is still presenting this deterioration as an actual acheivement (being in the top 50), while squeezing right and left into different rankings that might show a bit of improvement here or there?? When I joined McGill in 2013 to do my PhD it was in the top 20, and during my PhD time, it kept stooping. Today, ten years later, it “slipped” further to be the 49th. This is worth concern not celebration, I hope the “leadership” in the university discusses… Read more »
Very true. As McGill sinks down the drain, insiders try to do the job of “polishing” its decline and “showcasing” its ranking based on the nearest percentile even as that percentile gets smaller and smaller every year for McGill as it falls farther and farther down to the top 50, the top 100, the top 150, the top 200 as the last commentator aptly wrote above.