In good company

Photographer Bruce Bottomley took this polaroid of the Henry Hicks Building using an iPhone app. (Bruce Bottomley Photo)

Dalhousie has been ranked one of the top 200 universities in the world, and is one of only nine Canadian schools to make the grade. Dal ranks 193 in the world and 78 in North America according to Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. The results were released September 16.

"International rankings are very important for reflecting and strengthening our reputation as an excellent research intensive university, not only regionally and nationally but also internationally," says Martha Crago, Dalhousie's VP Research. "They help to recruit high quality students and attract world class scientists and scholars to attend and work at an institution like Dalhousie."

Climbing up the rankings year after year, Dalhousie is experiencing record enrollments in 2010 and attracting large numbers of new international students. Dalhousie continues to grow as an internationally known destination for prospective students.

"This is a wonderful thing for Dalhousie because we know that applicants from around the globe use The Times rankings as a reference to determine which institutions they would like to attend," says Asa Kachan, Dalhousie’s Assistant Vice-President Enrolment Management and Registrar.

This year’s rankings featured a new methodology for the UK based THE. Schools are scored based on many factors, including the number of papers published, number of doctoral degrees awarded and research funding. Another factor is "knowledge transfer" which is the amount of research that is translated and used for practical purposes, measured by the amount of research dollars invested by industry. The figures are based on the size of the institution to prevent larger schools from gaining an unfair advantage.

"Our ranking reflects, among other things, the quality of our researchers, their students and the contribution that Dalhousie's research makes to society by the creation of knowledge," adds Dr. Crago. "Our position of eighth in Canada and among the top 200 universities world-wide indicates that we do very well in these kinds of metrics."

The University of Toronto was the highest ranked Canadian school at 17th overall. The other Canadian schools ranked were the University of British Columbia (30), McGill (35), McMaster (93), Alberta (127), Victoria (130), l’Université de Montréal (138), Dalhousie (193) and Simon Fraser (199).