Why Canadian universities are falling behind in global rankings

Changes in the methodology for one of the world’s leading university rankings have led to a drop in international standings for several Canadian universities.

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Top Universities released their 2015/16 World University Rankings earlier this week, and while several Canadian schools appeared in the top 200 most of them found themselves sitting a bit lower than they did last year.

McGill University (24), University of Toronto (34), UBC (50), Universite de Montreal (115), McMaster University (149), University of Waterloo (152), and Western University (192) all appeared in the top 200 of the list, one of the three major rankings of world universities released each year. But all but University of Waterloo, which moved up 17 spots, fell in the rankings–some schools considerably. The University of Toronto dropped by 14 spots, for example, and Universite de Montreal by 32.

A change in the methodology used to determine the ranking is the reason behind the changed rankings for some schools. QS moved from a system that led to bias towards natural sciences and medicine to one that equally ranked the subject areas of arts and humanities, social sciences and management, natural sciences, life sciences, and engineering and technology, explained IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence in a statement.

Two other changes were made to the QS methodology. For one, the rankings no longer count academic papers with large numbers of contributors and citations. And they also extended the period for counting unchanged survey responses from three years to five. “It is noticeable that for those universities lower down the charts there are often quite large fluctuations in the number of responses to the academic and employer surveys from year to year, IREG Observatory said in its statement. “The object of this change is to make the rankings more stable.”

The changes were a boon for schools with strengths outside medicine and the natural sciences. For example, the California Institute of Technology moved up from the eighth spot in 2014 to the fifth this year, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore jumped from 39th last year to 13th.

But some schools aren’t happy with that explanation. “We are disappointed by this change as it does not properly reflect our strengths and excellence,” said Patrick Charette, director of corporate communications for the University of Ottawa, which fell 66 spots to 284.

“Our university still ranks among the best universities in Canada and uOttawa researchers continue to excel,” Charette told Yahoo Canada News in a statement. “For four consecutive years, the University of Ottawa has been ranked among the top 200 universities worldwide by Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, for example.”

The school also ranked in the top-ten for reputation among Canadian universities according to the QS Rankings, Charette said. McMaster University, Dalhousie University, and University of Waterloo were contacted but unable to provide comment before press time.

Canadian schools weren’t the only ones to struggle in this year’s rankings. Several schools in the UK saw their rankings slip, including storied institutes like the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. American heavy-hitters like Princeton and Yale also dropped, though the Massachusetts Institute of Technology held on to the top spot.

But as IREG Observatory pointed out, even significant changes in a school’s ranking from last year to this one aren’t necessarily any representation of a drop in educational quality. “In many countries universities with strengths in medical research or those that pay little attention to the humanities and social sciences have slipped several places while those that are relatively strong in technology and engineering have risen,” their statement read. And a news release from QS pointed out that Canada’s four universities in the top 100 globally is comparable to Germany, which has double the population and GDP.

Six factors are used by QS to determine a school’s overall ranking: academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and international student ratio.

The six Canadian schools have another chance to be highly rated when the Times Higher Education World University Rankings comes out on September 30. And the institutions that placed highly on the QS list also fared well in the most recent national ranking published by Macleans. The University of Waterloo came third in the magazine’s ranking of comprehensive universities, for example, while McGill, University of Toronto, and UBC were rated the top-three Medical Doctoral schools in the country.