Inaugurated as Victoria College in 1903, the universities have paved their way to becoming one of Canada's best universities and amongst the top 2% percent universities in the world. Popularly known as UVic, the university is famous for its dynamic learning opportunity and research impact.

  • University of Victoria is known for its research output for mathematics, engineering, data science, computer science, and ocean studies.
  • The institution has a tremendous global connection. Its faculty, staff, and students are partners with around 300 institutions in over 70+ countries.
  • It is one of the best universities in Canada, hence gaining the 82nd spot in the World Impact Ranking by Times Higher Education.
  • In fact, the Times Higher Education has ranked them 20th I the list of Young University Ranking.

The rankings of the University of Victoria as given by several ranking agencies are as mentioned below:

University of Victoria World Ranking

Ranking Agency Ranking- 2020 Ranking- 2021
Times Higher Education #401-#500 #351-#400
QS #364 #370
US News - #301
CWUR #372 #366
Webo-metrics - #214

University of Victoria QS 2021 Ranking

Global Ranking: #370

The QS ranks UVic at 370th position out of 4700 evaluated universities worldwide. QS Further marks them #3 at the national level for the impact of citations per faculty member. The QS ranking also speaks about the rising international reputation of UVic and its leadership in a broad range of academic fields.

The Ranking Agencies also states that UVic is an excellent university for several individual subjects. University of Victoria programs are accredited at top 300 institutions globally for academic teaching excellence and research output for 11 particular topics. These 11 subjects are as follows:

  • Earth and marine sciences
  • Education
  • English language and literature
  • Environmental sciences
  • Geology
  • Geophysics
  • Law
  • Mathematics
  • Philosophy
  • Physics and astronomy
  • Psychology

The QS uses several ranking criteria for evaluating any university. Mentioned below are the parameters and scores obtained by UVic for individual parameters.

Criteria Scores Weightage
Academic Reputation 16.5 40%
Employer Reputation 11.4 10%
Faculty : Student 4 20%
Citations per Faculty 64.5 20%
International Staffs 91.9 5%
International Students 65.3 5%
  • QS After evaluating these criteria, give the University of Victoria an overall score of 29.5.
  • The good Graduate Employability Ranking is deemed one of those many essential factors that a candidate looks for while applying for any university. The QS ranks UVic as the top #250-#300 university globally with an overall score of 27.6-32.2 when it comes to Graduate Employability Ranking.

University of Victoria vs University of British Columbia Comparison

University of Victoria Times Higher Education 2021 Ranking

Global Ranking: #351-#400

University of Victoria attracts over 4000 international students from more than 100 countries, hence, achieving an International Outlook score of 87.8 by the Times Higher Education. THE also deemed UVic as the #1 Canadian Comprehensive Universities to deliver career-ready students, and have also ranked them very high for global employability Ranking, 2019.

Mentioned below are the criteria that Times Higher Education uses to estimate the rankings of a university, and scores obtained by UVic in these parameters:

Parameters Scores
Teaching 23.6
Research 31.7
Citations 65.1
Industry Income 44.4
International Outlook 87.8

The Citations scores of 65.1 show how research intensive the university is considered to be.

University of Victoria Ranking CWUR 2021 Ranking

Global Ranking: # 366

CWUR considers UVic as the #16 best university in Canada, and #366 on a global scale. CWUR gives the institution an overall score of 75.8, taking into consideration several individual ranks.

These individual ranks obtained by UVic are listed below:

Sections Ranks Obtained
Quality of Education Ranking -
Alumni Employment Ranking -
Quality of Faculty Ranking -
Research Performance Ranking 335
World Rank 366
National Rank 16
Overall Score 75.8

We can see that CWUR have not marked the University for the First Three Rankings, which means that either none or very few alumni from UVic have won a major distinction to allow them to obtain a rank for the Quality of Education.

The institution is neither marked for Alumni Employment which means that very few of the alumni have held top executive position at world’s largest companies. The Quality of Faculty means the number of staffs that have won major academic distinction.

Despite the above rankings, UVic boasts of 47 faculty member that have been elected for the Royal Society of Canada award the most prestigious academic distinction in the country.

University of Victoria vs Simon Fraser University Comparison

University of Victoria Ranking: US News Ranking (2021)

Global Ranking: #301

US News is the most competitive ranking agency to maintain a rank in. Unlike other agencies it uses a wide range of 13 parameters to judge and rank a university. UVic here too have managed to maintain a prestigious ranking of #301 globally. US News further ranks UVic as the #11 best universities within the national boundaries.

  • US News have ranked UVic amongst the top universities globally for their impact on research citations- particularly for cited papers at #118 globally.
  • Research findings of UVic has put them at #14 worldwide for global collaborations in Space Science, #15 globally for computer science, and #21 globally for impact of citations on mathematics publications.

Listed below are all of those 13 parameters that US News considers to evaluate a university and the ranks obtained by University of Victoria globally in individual fields:

Parameters Ranks Weightage
Global research reputation #569 12.5%
Regional research reputation #156 12.5%
Publications #454 10%
Books #188 2.5%
Conferences #462 2.5%
Normalized citation impact #294 10%
Total citations #381 7.5%
Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited #360 12.5%
Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most #213 10%
International collaboration - relative to country #301 5%
International collaboration #249 5%
Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited #307 5%
Percentage of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited #204 5%

University of Victoria National Ranking 2021

Mentioned below are the national ranks obtained by UVic from several ranking agencies.

Ranking Agencies Ranks
The QS Ranking (2021) #14
CWUR(2021) #16
US News Ranking (2021) #11
Webometrics (2020) #13

University of Victoria Subject Specific Rankings 2021

UVic has a great global ranking and even better subject specific global rankings. The University have 10+ individual subjects that have been ranked with #300 globally by several ranking agencies. Mentioned below are those subjects and their ranks by several agencies:

Subjects QS (2020) THE (2021) US News (2021)
Natural Science #300 #151-#175 #225
Electrical & Electronic Engineering #401-#450 #251-#300 #178
Arts & Humanities #339 #251-#300 #236
Mathematics #251-#300 #151-#175 #202
Computer Science #301-#350 #251-#300 #332

UVic also comes under the top #100 universities for subjects related to Space Science. Also, ARWU ranks 54 individual subjects offered by UVic under top #300 globally.

Why Choose University of Victoria?

UVic claims to have 47 of their facility members nominated for The Royal Society of Canada, deemed the nation's highest academic honor.

  • Several instructors and staff have won the 3M Teaching award several times; the University also allocates 41 Canada Research Chairs.
  • The University of Victoria is an excellent college at the national level with an average ranking of #12. UVic also has an international order of around #300, which is pretty decent. It is even better for specific areas of study. Space Science has gained a special place in UVic with a globally ranking of around #100.

Despite having a separate institution for business & management courses (Peter B. Gustavsson School of Business), it has not gained business courses' popularity. The University is focused mainly on those aspects of studies that are research-intensive.