Concordia remains among the world’s best amid a growing crowd of institutions

Spring and early summer is a busy time for international university rankings.

As previously reported, Concordia took a significant step up in the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, released in April, placing 62nd out of 1,115 institutions worldwide.

Concordia’s advancement in research and other areas over the past several years has resulted in consistently appearing among the world’s best-ranked schools, even as rankings organizations add universities to their lists.

Below is a roundup of Concordia’s results from university rankings released over the past few months.

THE’s Young University Rankings

In the THE’s Young University Rankings (YUR) 2021, Concordia placed first in Canada among three universities under 50 years old for the fourth consecutive year. The number of ranked universities has steadily climbed every year, with the total rising this year to 475 from 414 in 2020.

Concordia ranked 149th worldwide, staying within the 101-150 range for the fifth straight year. Prior to 2021, THE only provided individuals ranks to the top 100 universities, but this year it did so for numbers one to 200.

The YUR applies the same measures of teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income used in the THE’s World University Rankings, but recalibrates weights to reflect young universities’ special characteristics.

Among the YUR’s five “pillars” or measures, Concordia improved its 2021 scores in Citations, International Outlook and Research.

Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects

Concordia placed in 19 subjects in the 2021 edition of Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS), one more subject than the previous year. It received top 100 world ranks in two subjects: Telecommunication Engineering and Civil Engineering; and it tied for second place in Canada in two subjects: Communication and Instruments Science & Technology.

The GRAS ranks more than 4,000 universities in 54 subjects across five broad subject fields: natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences and social sciences.

QS World University Rankings

Against a pool of universities that deepened by 30 per cent from last year, Concordia ranked among the top 40 per cent of universities worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2022. The university placed 521-530 out of 1,300 institutions, versus 477th out of 1,002 last year.

Concordia ranked 18th among 28 Canadian universities, compared to 17th out of 26 last year, and ranked 5th out of 13 Canadian comprehensive universities.

Center for World University Rankings

In the Center for World University Rankings 2021-22, Concordia placed 586th out of 2,000 universities for the second consecutive year, putting it in the top 3 per cent of 19,788 universities worldwide.

Concordia ranked 22nd out 42 Canadian universities, fifth in Quebec and seventh among Canadian comprehensive universities.

The university’s highest rank was for the Alumni Employment indicator, which accounts for 25 per cent of the total score and measures the number of a university’s alumni who currently hold CEO positions at the world’s top companies, relative to the university’s size.

For the full listings, see Times Higher Education Young University Rankings 2021, Shanghai Ranking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2021, QS World University Rankings 2022 and Center for World University Rankings 2021-22.