July 9, 2012

The University of Victoria has placed 11th in the world and first in Canada among universities under 50 years of age in the Times Higher Education’s 100-under-50 rankings.

A university’s standing was determined by13 objective performance indicators including research, citations (research influence), teaching, international outlook and industry income.

“Getting recognition for UVic’s international excellence is a testament to our commitment to outstanding scholarship and inspired teaching,” says UVic Vice-President Research Howard Brunt. “This is a great way to head into our 50th anniversary year.”

Britain-based THE, known for its autumn release of the World University Rankings, established the 100-under-50 group this year with the aim to show which post-secondary institutions and their countries are emerging as powerhouses in higher education. There are three Canadian universities in the top 100.

“This report is not about the traditional elites: it is about a new breed of global universities—those that have managed to join the world's top table in just decades, not centuries, and others showing great promise, institutions that could reach the top, given time,” explains Phil Baty, THE rankings editor, in an article about the new rankings.

THE rankings are regularly used by undergraduate and postgraduate students to help select degree courses, by academics to inform career decisions, by research teams to identify new collaborative partners and by university managers to benchmark their performance and set strategic priorities.

When the 100-under-50 rankings were recently released, THE did not initially include UVic because it used the founding date of the university’s predecessor institution, Victoria College. UVic was given degree-granting status on July 1, 1963.

For more information and to view the rankings visit http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=419908

The methodology for the rankings is explained at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=420090

A pdf of the entire table of the ranked universities is at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Journals/THE/THE/31_May_2012/attachments/THE%20100%20Under%2050_.pdf

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Denise Helm (UVic Communications) at (o) 250-721-7656 or dhelm@uvic.ca

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