Concordia makes the world top 100 once again
Concordia has once again been ranked as one of the top 100 ‘new’ (under 50 years old) universities in the world by the British-based publication, Times Higher Education (THE).
The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 rates the performance of universities founded within the last half-century. Concordia, founded in 1974, comes in at number 96 in the rankings, as one of five Canadian universities to make the list.
The ranking is based on the same indicators as the publication’s respected THE World University Rankings, but weightings are re-calibrated to better reflect the profile of younger universities. More weight is given to objective indicators of an institution’s core mission such as research, teaching, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Accordingly, subjective indicators of reputation are given a reduced weighting.
Concordia’s rating as a research institution has increased significantly since it made the inaugural edition of the ranking in 2012. The volume of research, research income and international scholars’ perception of the university’s research and teaching reputation scored higher in this latest ranking. Concordia also doubled its citation index score, which measures research influence based on the citation volume and impact of published work.
Once again this year, Concordia also received a high score for its international outlook, a measure of the numbers of international students and faculty members the university attracts as well as of the proportion of research projects involving international collaborators.
“We do well in global rankings because we are a global institution that welcomes top quality faculty and students from around the world,” says Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Provost and Vice-President of Academic Affairs.
“This ranking recognizes the impact our researchers’ work is making internationally in cutting-edge fields like, to name but a few, cyber-security, synthetic biology, arts and games, preventive health and alternative energy sources.”
As the editor of the Times Higher Education Rankings, Phil Baty, sees it, younger institutions can have an edge over long-established universities. “While they may not have had centuries to accumulate wealth and cannot draw on generations of alumni and rich traditions of scholarship to drive their reputations, they are free from the burdens of history: free to be more agile, lean, flexible and risk-taking, giving them an advantage in a rapidly changing global marketplace; free to offer innovative teaching and focus their research on niche, high-impact areas.”
Concordia has moved up in a number of rankings released this past year including the 2013 Maclean’s University Rankings, The Economist magazine’s “Which MBA?” survey of 2013 as well as the Top 500 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and the 2013 QS World University Rankings.
See the full 2014 Times Higher Education Top 100 Under 50 rankings.