Dalhousie received a top 200 global ranking in the subject area of Life Sciences & Medicine and placed in the top 150 for the individual subjects of Petroleum Engineering, Geophysics, Geology, and Earth & Marine Sciences in the 2022 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject.
The rankings included 1,543 institutions from 161 countries and looked at 51 individual subjects across five subject areas: Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, Life Sciences & Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Management. Canada was the sixth most-represented country in the rankings with 31 included universities.
From a national perspective, Dalhousie tied for third in Canada for Petroleum Engineering and fifth for Earth & Marine Sciences and Geophysics. Also ranked as top ten in the country were Geology, Pharmacy & Pharmacology, Biological Sciences, Law, Agriculture & Forestry, Environmental Sciences, and Medicine.
The rankings also highlighted the university's strengths in Computer Science & Information Systems, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Psychology, Natural Sciences, Chemistry, Materials Science, Physics & Astronomy, Business & Management Studies, and Economics & Econometrics.
Related reading: Dalhousie climbs higher in QS World University Rankings as competitive pool swells
How it's calculated
For the QS Rankings by Subject, scores are calculated per subject area using the results from the annual QS Academic Reputation and Employer Reputation Surveys combined with data from Elsevier and Scopus to determine the average number of citations per paper and the h-index, which measures the impact and quality of published works.
Earth & Marine Sciences was the best performing subject based on Academic Reputation; Environmental Science was the university's top subject based on Employer Reputation. Medicine led the university in citations per paper and Pharmacy & Pharmacology received the highest score in h-index.
Engineering & Technology received Dalhousie's highest score in International Research Network, a new indicator for the 2022 rankings. Calculated at the subject area level, International Research Network assesses the university's stable research collaborations to highlight the importance of working cooperatively with global partners.
Of the numerous global ranking bodies, Quacquerelli Symonds (QS) is one of the three main organizations Dalhousie chooses to engage with. The university also participates in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) from ShanghaiRanking and Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE WUR).
Related reading: Dalhousie receives five-star rating from QS Stars
