Report ranks Canada fifth in the world for higher education

A new analysis ranks Canada’s research and post-secondary system fifth in the world, behind the U.K. and the U.S., but ahead of other G-7 countries including Germany, France and Japan.  

The report issued this week by measuresHE — a company that specializes in higher education analytics research — ranked the higher education systems of more than 100 countries based on research, sustainability, openness, international integration, global standing, demographics and investments, and academic integrity. 

Canada’s fifth-place finish reflects not only the global standing and reputation of its top institutions, but an across-the-board strength in research, international integration, and academic integrity, according to the measuresHE analysis. 

“Some countries, I would say China as [an example], have very high influence, and it’s got some top universities… but the average university isn’t that great. And I think you see the same thing in the United States,” said David Watkins, co-founder of measuresHE and former managing director of data at Times Higher Education. “Whereas, when you look at Canada, look at Australia, and at Western Europe in particular, those areas, there’s real strengths across the board, rather than weaknesses within the lower tiers of the university system.” 

Canada’s overall score of 87.8 (out of a possible 100) put it just behind the fourth-ranked Sweden, at 88.1, third-ranked U.S., at 88.2, and second-ranked Netherlands, at 89.6. The U.K. came out on top with a score of 92.9.   

Low investments pull down Canada’s score 

Canada scored relatively low on the “demographics and investment” criterion, reflecting a relative deficiency in government and private-sector investment in higher education, said Billy Wong, co-founder of measuresHE and former principal data scientist at Times Higher Education. 

“If we look at spending as a percentage of GDP, Canada only scores around 57 points, whereas the top four [countries] score about 70 points. So there is quite a bit of gap in there. The reason behind that, like so many other countries, is always domestic politics. What do the politicians prioritize?” Mr. Wong said.  

He added that the “mix” of funding for universities — including government, industrial, and philanthropic sources — is “narrower” in Canada than in some other countries.

“Industry partnership is a little bit lower for Canada than it is for most of the rest of the top 10,” added Mr. Watkins. “Canada is a little bit behind in industry partnership, and typically that is reflected in industry funding as well.” 

Research heavily weighted 

The calculation of overall ranking was heavily weighted toward research quality, which accounted for 35 per cent of the overall score, and global standing, which accounted for 20 per cent.  Global standing was based on the average rank of a nation’s top two institutions, as determined by Times Higher Education and QS, and by a measure known as “research gravitas,” which attempts to capture the weight and influence of published research papers.  

Thanks to the high international rankings of McGill University and the University of Toronto, Canada scored 94.8 on the measure of global standing, which helped it to clinch fifth place. However, Mr. Watkins stressed, other measures within the overall calculation ensured that a country could not achieve a high ranking based on the performance of a few elite universities alone.  

Canada also scored a full 100 points on academic integrity. 

Teaching not part of rankings 

One omission in the rankings lay in the area of teaching, which was not included in the calculation. 

“There’s no really good publicly available data on this,” explained Mr. Watkins. “The research really is the lead indicator of the quality of the university. So that’s the main reason we really wanted to focus on the research side and not look too much at the teaching side.” 

Mr. Wong added that teaching is “notoriously difficult to measure fairly across countries.”  

While employment rate for graduates is often used as a proxy for teaching quality, this fails to take into account other factors, such as economic recessions and overall employment rates in different countries, he added.  

“It is something that would be really interesting to look at. But until we have a way to measure that reliably across the world, it is better to stay away from it.” 

Transparency in ranking criteria 

Mr. Watkins, who launched measuresHE with Mr. Wong a year ago, said the company aims to provide transparency in its ranking methods. “All our data is open-sourced … and publicly available.” 

The data that went into calculating the rankings came for the OpenAlex bibliometric database, as well as public sources including the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the World Bank. Scores based on the data are adjusted for factors including national population and GDP, in an effort to rank each country on the quality of its educational and research system, not merely its size.