U of T among top 10 research organizations cited by global innovators

Feb 21, 2023

A woman working in a laboratory — *The Chemspeed materials acceleration platform (MAP) in the Aspuru-Guzik laboratory. Photo by Johnny Guatto.*

The University of Toronto is among the top 10 research organizations most often cited by the world’s most innovative companies and institutions, according to Clarivate, an international data analytics company. For the first time, Clarivate has identified the 50 global research organizations whose work is most often cited by the companies on its annual Top 100 Global Innovators list.

The only Canadian institution in the 2023 version of the list, U of T ranked 10^th among the research organizations most often cited by the companies and institutions at the pinnacle of the global innovation landscape — including U of T partners Fujitsu and Merck, among others. U of T’s 10^th-place rank is up considerably from a similar analysis by Times Higher Education in 2017 that placed U of T 18^th in the world.

“The University of Toronto’s world-leading research is driving innovations that power the global economy across a wide range of sectors, from health care to computing,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “Few universities in the world can rival U of T’s strength in research and innovation across such a broad spectrum of disciplines.

“Having U of T’s work regularly cited by the world’s most innovative organizations demonstrates both the scope and scale of our researchers’ global impact.”

In Clarivate’s 2023 report, U of T was the only institution outside the United States and Asia to place among the top 10 most-cited research organizations — ahead of institutions in the U.K. and Europe.

The University of Toronto’s world-leading research is driving innovations that power the global economy across a wide range of sectors, from health care to computing

The Top 100 Global Innovators report, which Clarivate has released since 2012, is based on enriched data from global indexes used by research leaders, scientists, engineers and their advisers daily to direct and guide their work. The ranking uses a comparative analysis of global invention data to assess the strength of every patented idea, using measures tied directly to their innovative power.

The University of Toronto’s world-leading research is driving innovations that power the global economy across a wide range of sectors, from health care to computing

Companies that qualify must have filed more than 500 inventions since 2000 and had more than 100 inventions granted in the 2023 five-year evaluation window.

In the past five years, U of T’s research has been cited in more than 120,000 publications as well as in nearly 3,000 patents by companies in more than 20 sectors, including biology, chemistry, medicine, immunology, molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, psychiatry and space science.

U of T is one of the world’s top-ranked public universities in the five most closely watched international rankings: U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities, Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, and National Taiwan University World University Rankings.

By Tabassum Siddiqui