UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
UNBC places second in Maclean's rankings

This marks the 23rd consecutive year UNBC has finished in the top five in its category.

UNBC continues to perform strongly in categories related to student experience and success, ranking first in student-faculty ratio and tying for second in the number of students per capita who win national academic awards.

The rankings also highlight UNBC's ongoing efforts to invest and enhance student resources and support. The University placed first overall in operating expenditures per weighted full-time equivalent students, while also improving its standings in areas related to student services, scholarships and bursaries, as well as library acquisitions.

"UNBC's continued recognition as one of Canada's top universities of its size belongs to the students, faculty, staff, alumni and community champions who contribute to this University every day," says UNBC Interim President Dr. Bill Owen. "From the beginning, UNBC was created with a clear vision: to ensure that people in central and northern British Columbia have equal access to a high-quality university education. More than 30 years later, that vision continues to guide us. The quality of our teaching, the impact of our research and our deep connections with communities across the North demonstrate that when we invest in the North, the North delivers."

UNBC also performed well in research, placing third in research impact and fourth in research volume among small universities. These measures, introduced in this year's rankings, assess the influence of faculty research publications and the volume of research output relative to the number of faculty members.

The University improved its standing in federal research funding indicators as well, ranking fourth in the number of faculty members receiving medical-science grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). UNBC rose to sixth place in the number of faculty members receiving social sciences and humanities research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

UNBC's continued strong showing comes as Maclean's updated its category structure, now ranking universities according to size. UNBC is ranked among 21 other small universities with fewer than 10,000 full-time equivalent students. In past years, the system was based on the range of programming offered and UNBC was in the primarily undergraduate category along with 19 other institutions.

Mount Allison placed first in the small university category. McGill placed first in the large group, for universities with more than 30,000 students. Simon Fraser placed first in the mid-size group, for universities with between 10,000 and 30,000 students.