The University of Alberta is a top 10 school in Canada according to the 2024 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), a prestigious global ranking that evaluates thousands of world-class institutions annually.
U of A missed the global top 100 but placed sixth in Canada, which is lower than its ranking last year when it placed fourth in Canada and 92nd globally.
It’s not the only Canadian university to slide in the global ranking, though, as only three made it to the global top 100, compared to five in last year’s ranking.
Canada’s top universities include the University of Toronto, which placed first in Canada and 26th globally; the University of British Columbia, second in Canada and 47th globally; McGill University, which ranked 74th globally and third in Canada; and McMaster University, which came fourth in Canada but failed to make the top 100 globally.
More than 2,500 institutions were evaluated for this year’s report, with Harvard, Stanford, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology making up the top three.
Six indicators are used for the ARWU ranking, which includes the quality of faculty and the number of alumni and staff who have won Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals. The number of highly cited researchers at an institution is another heavily weighted factor.
Other criteria the ARWU considers include research output based on the number of Nature and Science publications over the previous five years and the number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Citation Index during the last year.
The University of Alberta’s strong performance in the 2024 ARWU rankings follows strong showings in other global rankings. Earlier this year, the U of A cracked the global top 100 in the QS World Rankings, a prestigious school ranking that evaluates six different factors.