University of Waterloo

How it scores

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 1,240 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country.

No official admissions or earnings data is used for this university yet. Its in-country score is estimated from its standing among its own country’s universities on the global measures.

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Alumni founders of VC-backed companies (PitchBook)

1,303 src

Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)

13 src

Heads of state or government (Wikidata)

0 src

Students (undergraduate / total)

34,746 / 40,859

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =295. On strength alone: =196. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field

12.0% (11.4%–12.5%)

Papers in the top 1% of their field

1.3% (1.1%–1.5%)

Top-10% papers (fractional count)

980

All papers (fractional count)

8,183

International co-authored

58.1%

Open access

53.9%

Papers from 2020–23 since retracted

6 (0.31 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Position over time

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.