McMaster ranks among the best universities in the world in latest rankings

Photo of McMaster University Hall in summer with red roses

For the 20th year in a row, the university earned a Top 100 spot in this week’s Shanghai Rankings Academic Ranking of World Universities.


For the 20th year in a row, McMaster University has ranked among the top 100 universities in the world in the Shanghai Rankings. 

This year, McMaster ranked 98th in the world and 5th in Canada in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). 

As in previous years, McMaster’s strong performance is driven by the outstanding accomplishments of its faculty, including Nobel Prize winners, Clarivate highly cited researchers and the wide array of publications and citations in the fields of science and social sciences. 

Each year, more than 2,500 universities are ranked by the ARWU, which judges universities based on six objective criteria: The number of Nobel Prize- and Fields Medal-winning alumni and faculty; the number of Clarivate highly cited researchers; the number of articles published in journals Nature and Science; the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded™ and Social Sciences Citation Index™ in the Web of Science™; and the per capita performance of the university. 

Among Canadian universities, McMaster ranks 2nd in the area of Quality of Education and is tied for 2nd in the area of Awards, both of which measure the number of Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winning alumni from an institution. McMaster also ranked 4th in Canada in the area of Highly Cited Researchers. 

In addition to the ARWU, McMaster has also been consistently recognized for its performance in several fields of study, including its clinical medicine program which placed among the top 50 programs in the world and 2nd in Canada in last year’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects. This year’s subject-based rankings will be released on Oct. 27.