TEHRAN - The Islamic Republic of Iran ranks first among Islamic countries for having the highest number of top two percent most-cited researchers, according to Ahmad Fazelzadeh, head of the Islamic World Science Citation Database (ISC).

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are in the second and third places, respectively.

The ISC is responsible for monitoring the status of science and technology in Iran and other Islamic countries based on scientometric analyses.

It analyzes and reports the latest findings from various reliable sources and authorities to raise awareness about the scientific performance of the country and its latest developments, IRNA quoted Fazelzadeh as saying.

“It also provides the necessary information to managers of science and technology in the country for planning and policy-making to encourage and reinforce strengths and provide solutions to overcome shortcomings and challenges,” he added.

One of these reports is based on the latest findings of the joint project of Elsevier (Scopus database) and a group of Stanford University researchers known as "Stanford University Scientists Rankings".

The latest update of this database was published in October 2023.

The list analyzed the performance of authors for their published research outputs from 1960 to 2022 in 22 specific fields and 174 sub-fields, and based on that, introduced the scientists who are among the top two percent of the most-cited researchers in the world.

Fazelzadeh pointed out that in each edition, this database publishes two lists of highly-cited researchers in the top two percent of the world.

The difference between these two lists is the time period of the analyzed citations.

In one of the announced lists, the period of citations received is one year, and in the other list, the period of citations received is from 1996 onwards.

In the list published based on the one-year performance of researchers, out of 210,198 international researchers, 2,140 researchers were from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As he said, the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken the first place in terms of the number of highly cited researchers in the top two percent among Islamic countries, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia are in the second and third places, respectively.

Fazelzadeh stated, “There are 204,643 international researchers in the published list based on career data. There are 869 researchers with organizational affiliations to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Based on this list, the Islamic Republic of Iran ranks second among Islamic countries after Turkey, and Saudi Arabia ranks third.”

Stanford University ranking 2022

On October 26, 2022, Stanford University listed 1,870 Iranian researchers among the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists in the world, which had grown significantly compared to its previous year, 2021.

From 1996 to 2021, 715 researchers from Iran were listed, out of the total number of 195,506 international researchers.

Scopus ranking 2022

According to data released by Scopus, Iran published 78,225 scientific articles in this database in 2022. Accordingly, Iran is ranked 15th in the world in terms of publication of scientific works for the fourth consecutive year.

Scopus data in 2022 shows that Iran ranks first among countries in the region in terms of the number of scientific publications.

A review of Scopus data from 2014 to 2022 shows that Iran has always been the first among the countries in the region in terms of the number of publications and has been able to maintain this position.

In total, 3,950,305 works have been indexed in the Scopus. China, with 1,016,311 works, is the source of about 25 percent of the world's scientific publications and has the first place in this regard.

The United States, India, England, and Germany are also in the second to fifth place.

MT/MG