U of T was just ranked better than every school in the world but Harvard

The University of Toronto has just landed in an impressive position on yet another ranking of academic institutions, placing before such esteemed schools as Oxford and Yale Universities, and after only Harvard.

The annual index, which comes from the British scientific journal Nature, examines how various research hubs measure up when it comes to their work in the sciences.

And for 2023, U of T performed better than all other schools in the country, and many in the world.

When it came to all natural and health sciences, Toronto's top university was named the 19th-best as far as research output, with other Canadian institutions trailing behind at 64th (McGill), 70th (UBC), or worse.

But, for health sciences specifically, the school's score soared, putting it in second place out of 100 universities, behind Harvard University and before John Hopkins University, University of California San Francisco, and the University of Michigan. (Note: the National Institute of Health in the U.S. did outrank U of T, but is an arm of government not a school.)

U of T came in second of all academic institutions worldwide for health sciences research last year, according to the newly-released 2023 Nature Index.

This is despite the fact that the U.S. spends far more on health-science research (17 per cent of its GDP) than Canada (11 per cent of our far lower GDP).

The index relies on scholarly articles published in the year prior, examining how many came from each institution and the share of students or staff from each school that are listed as authors.

U of T's vice-president of research, innovation and strategic initiatives told Nature that the institution's collaboration with the 14 hospitals in the Toronto Academic Health Science Network, as well as its teamwork across disciplines, are keys to its research accomplishments in the last year.

She added that "despite limited investment, we’re really punching above our weight" as far as ongoing work in the health-science specialty goes.

Looking at the other subject areas measured, the school was rated 14th for its study in biological sciences, 31st for earth and environmental sciences, 34th for natural sciences, 56th for nature and science, 66th for chemistry and 80th for physical sciences.

Canada overall was named seventh for our output of scientific articles in 2022, behind the U.S., China, Germany, the U.K, Japan and France.