This is a ranking of the top 25 universities in the English-speaking world — excluding England and the U.S. — ranked relative to each other by average world rank for the year 2020-2021. For the purposes of this list, the “English-speaking world excluding England and the U.S.” includes those countries which have a native English-speaking population comprising at least 51% of the total population excluding England and the U.S. (51% is an mostly arbitrary percentage that I picked because it seemed to me to be an intuitively reasonable cutoff — of course other valid definitions are entirely possible). For the the purposes of this ranking, the United Kingdom is considered as comprised of 4 distinct countries (of which England is excluded on the ranking). To be entirely clear, I’ll list all the countries considered here: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Guyana, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Scotland, Suriname, and Wales (percentage of native English speakers sourced here).
The ranking was created by using metadata sourced from the four prominent rankings of world universities (each ranking released in 2020): Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), and U.S. News & World Report (USNWR).
Rank was checked on each list for every university in the English-speaking world excluding the England and U.S. ranked on each of the lists. Then for each university all its rank placements were averaged across lists to create the new list of average ranking for each university. The universities were then ranked according to their average ranking. The university with the highest average is thus ranked 1st, the one with the second highest average 2nd, and so on.
Finally, the results were tabled, and are shown below (Table 1.). The leftmost column shows the final relative placement (relative placement based on average rank, i.e.), the “institution” column shows the institution ranked along with the flag of the country in which it is located, the next four rightward columns (ARWU, QS, THE, USNWR) show the rank for each given institution in each of those selected world rankings, and the rightmost column (“Average World Rank”) averages the four ranking lists’ rank placement for each university.
Some observations —
- The original ranking which best predicts the summed average is ARWU.
- The original ranking which most poorly predicts the summed average is QS.
- The most represented country is Australia, with 11 universities appearing.
If anything appears to be in error, please email me at tuulifunctional@snmcgannon.com.
Rank | Institution | ARWU | QS | THE | USNWR | Average World Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | University of Toronto 🇨🇦 | 23 | 25 | 18 | 17 | 20.75 |
2 | University of Edinburgh 🏴 | 42 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 30.5 |
3 | University of Melbourne 🇦🇺 | 35 | 41 | 31 | 25 | 33 |
4 | University of British Columbia 🇨🇦 | 38 | 45 | 34 | 31 | 37 |
5 | University of Sydney 🇦🇺 | 74 | 40 | 51 | 27 | 48 |
6 | University of Queensland 🇦🇺 | 54 | 46 | 62 | 36 | 49.5 |
7 | McGill University 🇨🇦 | 78 | 31 | 40 | 51 | 50 |
8 | Australian National University 🇦🇺 | 67 | 31 | 59 | 64 | 55.25 |
9 | University of New South Wales 🇦🇺 | 74 | 44 | 67 | 51 | 59 |
10 | Monash University 🇦🇺 | 85 | 55 | 64 | 48 | 63 |
11 | University of Western Australia 🇦🇺 | 85 | 92 | 139 | 79 | 98.75 |
12 | University of Glasgow 🏴 | 151 | 77 | 92 | 86 | 101.5 |
13 | McMaster University 🇨🇦 | 98 | 144 | 69 | 133 | 111 |
14 | University of Adelaide 🇦🇺 | 151 | 106 | 118 | 73 | 112 |
15 | University of Montreal 🇨🇦 | 151 | 118 | 73 | 140 | 120.5 |
16 | University of Alberta 🇨🇦 | 101 | 119 | 131 | 138 | 122.25 |
17 | University of Auckland 🇳🇿 | 201 | 81 | 147 | 125 | 138.5 |
18 | Trinity College Dublin 🇮🇪 | 151 | 101 | 155 | 244 | 162.75 |
19 | University of Technology Sydney 🇦🇺 | 201 | 133 | 160 | 162 | 164 |
20 | Cardiff University 🏴 | 151 | 159 | 191 | 168 | 167.25 |
21 | University of Waterloo 🇨🇦 | 151 | 166 | 201 | 210 | 182 |
22 | University of Ottawa 🇨🇦 | 151 | 279 | 145 | 192 | 191.75 |
23 | University of Calgary 🇨🇦 | 151 | 246 | 200 | 174 | 192.75 |
24 | Curtin University 🇦🇺 | 201 | 217 | 201 | 174 | 198.25 |
25 | University of Wollongong 🇦🇺 | 201 | 196 | 201 | 214 | 203 |