Canadian university ranks better than every school except Harvard.

The University of Toronto has earned an amazing placement on yet another list of intellectual institutions, coming in just second to Harvard and ahead of prestigious universities like Yale and Oxford. The annual index, which is published by the British scientific publication Nature, assesses the scientific productivity of various research hubs.

And for 2023, U of T outperformed every other school in the nation as well as many others worldwide. Toronto’s top university was ranked 19th in the world for research output in the natural and health sciences, while other Canadian universities lagged behind at 64th (McGill), 70th (UBC), or even lower.

But for health sciences especially, the school’s rating rose, placing it in second place out of 100 universities, ahead of John Hopkins University, the University of California San Francisco, and the University of Michigan. This is true even though Canada spends significantly less on health-related research (11% of our much lower GDP) than the US does (17% of its GDP).

The index uses scholarly publications from the previous year, counting the number of articles from each university and the proportion of papers with authors who are affiliated with that institution.

According to the vice president of research, innovation, and strategic initiatives at U of T, the institution’s partnership with the 14 hospitals in the Toronto Academic Health Science Network and its cross-disciplinary teamwork was essential in its research successes in the previous year. Regarding ongoing work in the field of health sciences, she continued, “Despite limited investment, we’re really punching above our weight.”

When ranking the other subject categories, the school came in at number 14 for biological sciences, number 31 for earth and environmental sciences, number 34 for natural sciences, number 56 for nature and science, number 66 for chemistry, and number 80 for physical sciences.