TEHRAN – The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 has introduced 59 Iranian universities among the top institutions worldwide.

The ranking includes more than 1,600 universities across 99 countries and territories, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.

The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

This year’s ranking analyzed more than 108 million citations across over 14.4 million research publications and included survey responses from almost 22,000 scholars globally. Overall, it collected over 430,000 data points from more than 2,100 institutions that submitted data.

Overall, 1,662 universities are ranked.

Iran tops Islamic countries in Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022. From 2012 to 2014, there was only one university from Iran in the rankings. In 2015, Sharif University of Technology and Isfahan University of Technology participated in this ranking, and in 2016, the number of universities has reached 8.

While, 13 Iranian universities were listed in 2017; 40 and 47 in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

In 2022, with 12 new universities, 59 universities from Iran are among the world’s 1600 top universities from 99 countries (and four universities are listed with “reporter” status, meaning that they provided data but did not meet the eligibility criteria to receive a rank).

Iran's best ranking in 2022 is in the range of 351-400, while last year it was in the range of 301-350.

The Noshirvani University of Technology, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, and Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences have been introduced as the first universities in Iran in this ranking by being in the range of 351-400.

The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the sixth consecutive year, while mainland China has two institutions in the top 20 for the first time: Peking University and Tsinghua University share 16th place.

Institut Polytechnique de Paris is the highest new entry at 95th place, following a merger of five institutions.

Iran ranks first among Islamic countries 

In the 2022 Times rankings, 24 Islamic countries participated, with Iran ranking first representing 59 universities, and Turkey having the highest attendance with 54 universities after Iran.

Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Nigeria, UAE, Bangladesh, Morocco, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Oman, Palestine, Kuwait, Qatar, Uganda, and Brunei are the Islamic countries in this ranking.

Moreover, 12 Islamic countries received ranks below 500, while according to the 10-year plan of science, innovation, and technology of OIC member states (approved in 2017 in Kazakhstan), since 2026, some 50 universities from Islamic countries should be among the top 500 universities in the world.

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