Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, published its newest ranking of top 500 universities worldwide, in which York is nowhere to be found.
The list, released on August 17, included 20 Canadian universities. The University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and McGill University took the acclaim.
From 2009 to last year, York had been ranked 401-500, decreasing overall since 2011, according to ARWU.
In the discipline-specific result of ARWU, York was ranked between 101-150 in both social science and economics/business this year.
According to Rhonda Lenton, vice president academic and provost, universities that focus on math and sciences generally are ranked higher than those that have a broad range of social science programs, such as York.
Lenton notes that ARWU favours older universities that have been doing intensive research for a very long time, and York is still a rather new university.
Many of York’s programs were not included in the ranking indicators.
She also notes that Ontario universities in ARWU top 500 by in large have medical or veterinary schools and are therefore research intensive by nature.
Lenton says the survey is entirely based on research and does not reflect teaching quality.
York’s internal performance metrics for research intensity continue to improve year after year and are more directly relevant to York, says Lenton. This includes increasing quality and impact of research publication, maintained research productivity, and increasing research income of all sources.
James Zhan, Contributor
Featured image courtesy of Michael Zusev, Photo Editor
