Academics and Employers Name the World’s Top Universities in 36 Disciplines

London, 29th April 2015: The new QS World University Rankings by Subject 2015 released today on TopUniversities.com, features a record-breaking 36 disciplines, six more than last year, making it the largest ever ranking of its kind.

The expert opinion of 85,062 academics and 41,910 employers informed the results, alongside the analysis of 17.3 million research papers
and over 100 million citations (Scopus/Elsevier bibliometric database).

Canada is the fifth most represented country for number of places across the rankings secured by its 26 universities.
Of these 433 places, 74 rank lower than last higher, 124 rank higher, 173 are unchanged and 62 are new entries.
Canada boasts 96 placements among the Top 50.

Two Canadian universities make the global top-ten: the University of Guelph, fourth in the world for Veterinary Science. The University of British Columbia, sixth globally for Geography and makes the Top 50 in 26 subjects.

The University of Toronto makes the Top 50 in 32 disciplines and its highest ranks are in Geography (11). English Language and Literature (13) and Medicine (13). McGill University highest makes the Top 50 in 25 subjects, ranking the highest in in Medicine (22).

The University of Waterloo is twentieth in the world for Mathematics.

The University of Alberta top result is in Pharmacy (31) McMaster University ranks the highest in Medicine (33)
while Université de Montréal in Statistics (33).

The Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design debuts in these rankings in the new Arts & Design table, conquering the 47th spot.
The same result is achieved in Veterinary Science (47) – another brand new table –  by the University of Saskatchewan.

Ben Sowter, head of research says: “The global competitiveness of the Canadian higher education system is reflected in these rankings,
which highlight the excellence of Canadian universities at discipline level.”

Harvard and MIT continue to take the lion’s share of top places, leading in 21 subjects between them.
However, UK universities have improved their positions overall, with six separate institutions leading in at least one subject.

In the six NEW disciplines ranked, London Business School leads Harvard and INSEAD in Business and Management, while MIT leads The Bartlett School (UCL) and TU Delft in Architecture.

The Royal College of Art tops the table for Art & Design followed by Parsons School for Design.Sweden’s Karolinska Institute tops Dentistry while Hong Kong University takes the second spot.

University of Sussex dominates Development Studies followed by Harvard and Manchester University. UC Davis, Cornell and The Royal Veterinary College take the top three spots for Veterinary Science.

Sowter  comments: “The ranking shows that academic excellence is widely distributed around the globe.
The 894 universities ranked are based in 60 different countries.The 200 universities listed for business, for example, are in 32 nations,
and the 400 ranked for medicine in 47.”

Cambridge ranks among the top-ten in 31 disciplines followed by Oxford and Stanford with 29 apiece. Harvard makes the top –ten in 28 subjects, UC Berkeley in 26 and MIT in 19 and LSE 11.
They are followed by Princeton and UCLA (10) Yale (9) Imperial College (8), UCL (6) Caltech and Columbia University (5).

Outside UK and US, here are the universities achieving the most numerous placements within the top-ten.

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Notes for editors

QS World University Rankings by Subject
Since 2011, QS has extended the scope of the world’s rankings to include the evaluation of 36 individual disciplines. The methodology utilizes adaptive weightings for the four criteria, to take into account the differences among disciplines. Details of the methodology can be found at http://www.iu.qs.com/university-rankings/subject-tables/
The rankings are based on research citations, alongside reputational surveys of over 126,000 academics and graduate employers worldwide.