TEHRAN - The Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology has announced new criteria for ranking the country’s universities based on indices of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC).

The new criteria are related to ‘students, culture, and society’ as well as ‘management and productivity’, IRIB quoted Ahmad Fazelzadeh, head of the ISC, as saying.

Education (25 percent), research (20 percent), technology and innovation (15 percent), scientific and technological authority and diplomacy (15 percent), students, culture, and society (15 percent), and management and productivity (10 percent) constitute the criteria.

ISC WUR includes more Iranian universities

In February, the ISC released the World University Rankings (WUR) 2024 report, which includes 69 Iranian universities compared to 63 in 2022.

A total of 377 universities from 29 Islamic countries were listed in the ranking, where Turkey with 93 universities, and Iran with 69 universities ranked first and second respectively, Mehr news agency reported.

Among the top universities of Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia ranks 107, Qatar ranks 351- 400, Lebanon, Pakistan and the UAE ranked 451-500, Iran, Egypt, and Malaysia ranked 501-600.

In the ISC WUR 2023, there were 2,555 universities from 114 countries and 6 continents in the global ranking.

ISC WUR is one of the ranking systems that started ranking universities for the first time in 2018 by the ISC Ranking Department with the aim of evaluating the universities of the country as well as Islamic countries at the world level.

The ranking of the world's universities by ISC is done without self-declaration of the universities, and based on this, a reliable database of the ranking of the world's universities has been formed in this organization over 5 years, which is a reliable source for research policies and drawing a road map to guide the universities of Iran and other Islamic countries towards It is a world-class university.

To rank the world universities in its criteria, ISC considered the most important mission of universities which were research (60%), education (10%), international activities (15%), technology and innovation (15%), and then evaluated universities.

Besides, the number of university retractions was calculated with a negative score, which is included in a criteria called Negative Reputation.

In the ISC World University Ranking, universities that had published at least 850 documents in Web of Science 2018-2020 was considered. The information on this ranking was collected from USPTO, WOS, and InCites.

In the ISC 2023 global ranking, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Stanford University were ranked first to third.

Other rankings in ISC

On December 26, 2023, the ISC released a report, ranking 115 governmental and 17 non-governmental universities according to six indices

Education counts for 30 percent, Research counts for 25 percent, Technology and Innovation counts for 20 percent, International Outlook counts for 10 percent, and Social Services, Infrastructure, and Facilities counts for 5 percent, ISNA quoted the ISC head Ahmad Fazelzadeh as saying.

The universities of Tehran, Fardowsi of Mashhad, Tarbiat Modarres, Shahid Beheshti, and Shiraz were placed first to fifth in the ranking.

On December 20, Iran was ranked second in terms of the number of patent citations to scientific publications among Islamic countries, according to the ISC.

Scientific impact is often measured using citation counts, which is something common in scientometric studies, but these citations in technological environments can be considered as the impact of science on technology, IRIB quoted Fazelzadeh as saying.

This index demonstrates the extent to which technological advances and innovations are based on the achievements and findings of scientific research, he added.

MT/MG