The University of Toronto announced Sunday the largest fund-raising campaign ever by a Canadian institution. The university seeks to raise $2-billion by 2016 to build on its international stature with new scholarships, competitive recruitment of faculty, and added support for advanced research.

Assuming a successful campaign, Canada’s largest higher-education institution, of 80,000 students, “will be globally connected and more prominent on the world stage than is the case today,” the university’s president, David Naylor, told The Chronicle.

With new scholarships and financial aid, the university intends to expand the proportion of domestic students who study abroad, now fewer than 10 percent, to between 40 percent and 50 percent over time, and to attract more international students as well.

Mr. Naylor says the university has to remain globally competitive in attracting young scholars, both home-grown and international, to conduct significant research on the “the grand challenges” faced by the world. “It is more competitive to get the best and brightest than one might imagine, given the global economic uncertainty,” he said, adding, “It seems everyone is back in the business of bidding up bright young faculty.”

The university is already halfway to its campaign goal, which breaks a record set earlier this fall by the University of British Columbia, when it announced plans to raise $1.5-billion by 2015.