University of Toronto ranked among world’s top 25 universities by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy

Aug 21, 2026

U of T was named the top-ranked Canadian institution in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

The University of Toronto has climbed one spot to 24^th globally in the latest edition of ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s university rankings.

U of T shares the 24^th position with Zhejiang University in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities, which was released on Aug. 15. Among public universities, U of T placed sixth in North America and 13^th worldwide.

This marks the ninth consecutive year that U of T has been ranked among the world’s top 25 universities in the closely watched annual ranking.

“I am delighted to see the University of Toronto continue to be recognized as a global leader in research and education,” said Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “Our excellent performance in these rankings reflects the extraordinary creativity, ambition and dedication of our faculty, students and alumni, who are advancing knowledge and making discoveries in critical fields.”

Significant gains in research and faculty and alumni awards

The Academic Ranking of World Universities is based on six measures related to research and academic performance. They include: the number of alumni and faculty winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; number of highly cited researchers in 21 fields of sciences and social sciences and those demonstrating exceptional performance in a cross-field category; number of papers published in the prestigious journals Nature and Science; articles cited in major science and social sciences citation indices; and institutions’ per capita academic performance.

U of T saw significant gains in the categories of highly cited researchers as well as faculty and alumni awards in the wake of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor Emeritus of computer science, and the 2026 Fields Medal for Jacob Tsimerman, professor of mathematics as well as a U of T alum.

Our excellent performance in these rankings reflects the extraordinary creativity, ambition and dedication of our faculty, students and alumni, who are advancing knowledge and making discoveries in critical fields.

More than 2,500 institutions were evaluated in the rankings, with the top 1,000 published in the final ShanghaiRanking Consultancy list.

The five highest-ranked universities, unchanged for the past several years, were Harvard University, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley.

Our excellent performance in these rankings reflects the extraordinary creativity, ambition and dedication of our faculty, students and alumni, who are advancing knowledge and making discoveries in critical fields.

U of T continues to be highly ranked in the five most closely watched international rankings

More than 2,500 institutions were evaluated in the rankings, with the top 1,000 published in the final ShanghaiRanking Consultancy list.

Two other Canadian universities placed among the top 100: the University of British Columbia (54^th) and McGill University (73^rd).

Overall, U of T continues to be ranked among the top universities globally in the five most closely watched international rankings: Times Higher Education World University Rankings, QS World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, U.S. News & World Report‘s Best Global Universities and NTU World University Rankings.

By Rahul Kalvapelle