The University of Regina is one of three Canadian universities to make the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings list of the world’s best universities that are aged 50 years or under.
Compared to last year, the U of R has scored higher in four categories.
The British-based rankings include slightly different weightings for younger universities than their World University Rankings. For example, reputation carries less weight for younger universities. Scores are weighted for: teaching (the learning environment) 30 per cent, research (volume, income and reputation) 30 per cent, citations (research influence) 30 per cent, international outlook (staff, students and research) 7.5 per cent and industry income (knowledge transfer) 2.5 per cent. In the area of teaching, the U of R scored 21.2, which is up from 20.8 last year. This is calculated by: reputation survey: 10 per cent, staff-to-student ratio: six per cent, doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio: three per cent, doctorates-awarded- to-academic-staff ratio: eight per cent and institutional income: three per cent.
The U of R improved the most in the area of citations, at 48.8, up from 34.2. This measures how often a university’s published works are cited by other scholars. The method of calculating this was changed this year to allow for greater recognition of co-authored works.
Another area of improvement was international outlook, at 50.9, up from 47.4. This is based on three criteria: international-to-domestic-student ratio; international-to-domestic-staff ratio; and international collaboration.
There was also an increase for the U of R in the industry income category, at 34.8, up from 34.4. This measurement looks at how much research income an institution earns from industry, scaled against the number of academic staff it employs.
The U of R was scored lower this year in the area of research, with a score of 17.1, down from 22.9. This was calculated by using three measurements: a reputational survey (12 per cent), research income (nine per cent) and research productivity (nine per cent).
The U of R is ranked between 101 and 150 in the top 200 — although a specific number is not assigned.
As for the two other Canadian universities in the young university category, Concordia is also in the 101 to 150 category; University du Quebec a Montreal moved up to 97th. The University of Calgary, which was 18th last year, dropped off the list because it’s now more than 50 years old as it was founded in 1966.
