McGill again first in Canada, 21st in the world

McGill moved up from 24th place to 21st in this year's world rankings.
Owen Egan

Michael Bourguignon

McGill has once again earned international recognition as Canada's top university and one of the best in the world, according to the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement's World University Rankings.

The only Canadian university among the top 25 in the world every year since 2004, when the THES launched its annual rankings of the world's 200 best universities, McGill moved up this year to 21st place from 24th in 2005.

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.

In addition, McGill was named 31st in the science category, 50th in technology, and 21st in biomedicine.

"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," said McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum.

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, 10 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 moved up from last year's rankings 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.