Three Canadian universities rank among top 50 in the world: report

A new ranking has named three Canadian universities as the top 50 post-secondary institutions in the world.

This is according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024.

These are the best universities in Canada and how they rank internationally:

• #21 University of Toronto 
• #41 University of British Columbia
• #49 McGill University 

Once again, the University of Toronto ranked the highest out of Canada’s universities. However, U of T did drop three spots down from its 18th-place ranking in 2023.

UBC placed #41, dropping one spot below the #40 ranking it received in 2023.

McGill also slipped three spots down the 2023 ranking from #46 to #49.

“Canada has three universities in the top 50, six in the top 150, eight in the top 200 and its top 10 are in the top 250 of THE’s World University Rankings 2024,” noted Time Higher Education in a release.

The rankings looked at 1,904 universities across 108 countries and regions and used 18 performance indicators, which were grouped into five pillars: teaching, research, quality, research environment, international outlook, and industry.

Time Higher Education highlighted that compared to the global average, Canada showed the most improvement in the industry pillar (20 points) “thanks largely to the introduction of the new metric in this pillar examining patents to better understand universities’ contributions to creating intellectual property.”

Internationally, the UK’s University of Oxford placed first in the global rankings, followed by Standford University in second, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in third place.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

Phil Batty, Time Higher Education’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, noted that to bolster its position among the world’s highest-ranked universities, Canada must invest in more research funding.

“Canada has some of the world’s very best universities, with three in the world top 50 and eight top-200 universities. However, after a welcome funding spike for research eight years ago there seems to be a growing sense of frustration in Canadian higher education about a lack of direction,” he said.

“While the modest falls for Canada’s top universities this year should not be a cause for alarm – the data does send out clear warning signals. It will require clear political will and strong funding support to protect Canada’s status as a world research powerhouse.”