Dalhousie University makes world’s best list

The University of Toronto has been rated the 17th best university in the world by the London-based Times Higher Education, a weekly British publication.

Times Higher Education (THE), which specializes in education reporting was established in 1971 and has been publishing annual rankings since 2004.

This year, the University of Toronto was the top Canadian school. The University of British Columbia also made it into the top rankings at No. 30.

Other Canadian schools in the Top 200 include Montreal’s McGill at No. 35; Hamilton’s McMaster University at No. 93; the University of Alberta, in Edmonton at No. 127; the University of Victoria in British Columbia at No. 130; the University of Montreal at No. 138; Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University at No. 193 and Simon Fraser University in B.C. at No. 199.

On its website, the publication says its rankings were developed with input from more than 50 leading figures in the world of higher education from 15 countries which cover every continent.

"We are confident that the 2010-2011 world university rankings represent the most accurate picture of global higher education we have ever produced," THE said Thursday.

THE said the rankings of the top universities around the world use 13 performance indicators which it says are "designed to capture the full range of university activities, from teaching to research to knowledge transfer."

These 13 elements are brought together into five categories, which are:

Teaching – the learning environment (worth 30 per cent of the overall ranking score)

Research – volume, income and reputation (worth 30 per cent)

Citations – research influence (worth 32.5 per cent)

Industry income – innovation (worth 2.5 per cent)

International mix – staff and students (worth five per cent).

The University of Toronto achieved a score of 82 points, just behind the University of Michigan with 83.4 points and Cornell with 83.9.

All schools in the Top 5 were in the United States.

The top university ranking went to Harvard, with a score of 96.1. Other schools in the Top 5 were: California Institute of Technology, 96.1; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 95.6; Stanford, 94.3 and Princeton, with a score of 94.2

Canada ranked fifth in the world with nine schools in the Top 200. The U.S. was first with 72, followed by the U.K. with 29, Germany with 14 and The Netherlands with 10.