U of T fifth in the world, first among North American public universities: NTU rankings

The University of Toronto is ranked among the top five research universities in the world – and first among North America’s public universities – in the latest National Taiwan University Rankings.

U of T placed first in Canada and fifth in the world, up one spot from last year, in the research-focused 2023 NTU rankings, which rate universities based on their overall output of scientific publications, in addition to scoring performance in specific fields and subjects.  

Among global public universities, U of T ranked third behind University College London and the University of Oxford.

In a related ranking by field, U of T placed second globally in medicine and sixth for social sciences. This was complemented by success in the subject rankings, where U of T placed in the top 10 globally in clinical medicine (2nd), neurosciences and behaviour (3rd), psychiatry and psychology (4th) and social sciences, general (6th).

“We are incredibly proud of the University of Toronto’s exceptional performance in these rankings, which reflect our commitment to research excellence across a wide range of disciplines,” said Leah Cowen, vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“From life-changing innovations in medicine and technology to paradigm-shifting discoveries in the humanities and social sciences, our researchers, faculty and students continue to push the boundaries of knowledge to the benefit of the world.”

More than 1,500 universities were considered for this year’s rankings, and the top 1,000 were ranked. Based on an analysis of scholarly publications, the rankings use measures such as number of articles and citations to evaluate a university’s performance across three criteria – research productivity, research impact and research excellence. 

Similar methodology is used to determine NTU's field and subject rankings, where the sheer breadth of U of T’s expertise was on full display this year. On the world stage, U of T ranked among the top 50 universities in four of the six fields and 13 of the 27 subject areas – all while coming first in Canada in a total of 16 subject areas.

Three other Canadian universities made the top 100 in the overall NTU rankings: University of British Columbia (33rd), McGill University (57th) and University of Alberta (86th).

U of T continues to be the highest-ranked Canadian university and ranked among the top 25 universities globally in the five most closely watched international rankings: Times Higher Education World University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities and National Taiwan University World University Ranking.