TEHRAN — The Center for Science and Technology Studies Leiden Ranking has placed 36 Iranian universities in the list of over 1,000 major universities worldwide in 2020 compared with 26 universities in 2019.

The ranking is prepared based on the indicators of scientific impact and collaboration.

The rankings are compiled by the CWTS (Dutch: Centrum voor Wetenschap en Technologische Studies, CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The CWTS Leiden Ranking 2020 offers a sophisticated set of bibliometric indicators that provide statistics at the level of universities on scientific impact, collaboration, open access publishing, and gender diversity.

Leiden Ranking system, unlike other ranking systems in the world, does not calculate single rankings for universities in its system, but universities are ranked in all criteria and indicators in the Leiden system, Mohammad Javad Dehghani, head of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), said.

With the presence of 36 universities in this ranking system, Iran, as in previous years, ranks first among Islamic countries in terms of the number of top universities. Turkey and Egypt are ranked second and third with 30 and 7 universities, respectively, he explained.

In 2020, Tehran University, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares, Sharif University of Technology, Iran Science and Technology, Isfahan University of Technology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti, Islamic Azad University, Tehran Science and Research Branch, Tabriz Medical Sciences, Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Shiraz Medical Sciences, Iran Medical Sciences, Shahid Bahonar, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Malek Ashtar University of Technology, Sahand University of Technology, are among Leiden rankings.

In terms of scientific impact, almost all universities in the country (except 5) have performed better in terms of rankings compared to last year, and the University of Tehran, which is the first university in the country, has risen from 156 in 2019 to 140 in 2020.

In terms of collaboration, in general, there is no significant improvement in the ranking of the country's universities. However, the best ranking of the country has increased from 212 to 201 by the University of Tehran.

In terms of open access publishing, the ranking of the country's universities has not changed much, the best ranking in the country has been obtained by the University of Tehran, which has been upgraded from 212 in 2019 to 201 in 2020.

In gender diversity, also there are no significant changes, however, the best rank in the country has been upgraded from 186 to 156 by Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

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