Concordia University is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the three universities in Quebec where English is the primary language of instruction (the others being McGill and Bishop’s). As of the 2020–21 academic year, there were 51,253 students enrolled in credit courses at Concordia, making the university among the largest in Canada by enrolment. The university has two campuses, set approximately 7 kilometres (4 miles) apart: Sir George Williams Campus is the main campus, located in the Quartier Concordia neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville Marie; and Loyola Campus in the residential district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. With four faculties, a school of graduate studies and numerous colleges, centres and institutes, Concordia offers over 400 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs and courses.
Concordia is a non-sectarian and coeducational institution, with more than 230,000 alumni worldwide. The university is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, International Association of Universities, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate, Canadian Bureau for International Education and Canadian University Press. The university’s varsity teams, known as the Stingers, compete in the Quebec Student Sport Federation of U Sports.
Reputation
Concordia University has placed well in postsecondary school rankings. In the 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities rankings, the university ranked 501–600 in the world. The 2023 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 551–560 in the world. The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Concordia 601–800 in the world. In U.S. News & World Report 2022 global university rankings, the university placed 657th in the world. The university was also ranked by Maclean’s Canadian university rankings. In October 2021, Maclean’s ranked Concordia 13th in Canada under its comprehensive universities category.
The university’s John Molson School of Business was ranked among the top 10 Canadian business schools and the top 100 worldwide by The Economist in 2022. Moreover, Concordia was ranked seventh in Canada and 229th among world universities in the International Professional Classification of Higher Education Institutions, a worldwide ranking compiled by the École des Mines de Paris that uses as its sole criterion the number of graduates occupying the rank of chief executive officer at Fortune 500 companies.