UBC’s Ranks in the Top 35 of the World’s Universities

The University of British Columbia now ranks solidly within the world’s top 35 universities, according to surveys of more than 1,000 institutions.

UBC placed 34 in the world in the 2008 Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings, released today in London and comprising more than 1,000 universities.

In August, the 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities, compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, placed UBC at 35 in its annual survey of the world’s top 500 universities.

“While the very idea of comparing universities is fraught with methodological problems, we are beginning to see a pattern in these surveys that mirrors the research excellence that we have fostered at UBC,” said UBC President Stephen Toope, “and that acknowledges the fruition of wise research investments by our federal and provincial governments.”

In both these surveys, which are oriented toward research performance, UBC is ranked the second-highest among Canadian universities. 

International rankings of the thousands of universities around the world are a recent phenomenon. The first such ranking was compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003, when UBC was also placed at 35. Since that time, the university has placed between 35 and 37th place.

The Times Higher Education rankings began in 2004, when UBC was placed at 46. Since then, UBC has place between 33 and 50.

Domestically, UBC placed second in the 2007 Maclean’s rankings.

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