TEHRAN –Leiden University ranking system 2024 has included  46 Iranian universities among the top 1,506 universities worldwide, ranking the country first among Islamic nations in terms of the number of universities.

A total of 146 universities from Islamic countries are included in this year's ranking.

Turkey with 40, Saudi Arabia with 16, Egypt with 15, and Pakistan with 13 universities are placed second and fifth.

The Leiden Ranking provides indicators of scientific impact, collaboration, open-access publishing, and gender diversity.

The Leiden Ranking is based on publications in the Web of Science database produced by Clarivate.

The most up-to-date statistics made available in the Leiden Ranking are based on publications in the period 2019–2022, but statistics are also provided for earlier periods.

Web of Science includes a number of citation indices. The Leiden Ranking uses the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Only publications of the Web of Science document types articles and reviews are taken into account. The Leiden Ranking does not consider book publications, publications in conference proceedings, and publications in journals not indexed in the above-mentioned citation indices of the Web of Science.

Citations are counted until the end of 2023 in the calculation of the above indicators. Author self–citations are excluded.

Recent rankings

The Times Higher Education (THE)  included 33 universities from Iran among the top 1,500 universities pursuing sustainable development goals (SDG) compared to 27 universities in 2023.

THE evaluated 2,152 universities from 125 countries to produce the overall Impact Ranking for 2024.

A total of 29 Iranian universities are mentioned in the overall table including Alzahra University, Iran University of Medical Sciences, and Kerman University of Medical Sciences (ranking 401- 600); Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, and University of Tehran (ranking 601 -800); Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Sharif University of Technology, University of Kurdistan, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (ranking 801-1000), Mehr news agency reported.

Amirkabir University of Technology and Sharif University of Technology achieved the highest ranking in industry innovation and infrastructure, where they are placed 27.

The 21st edition of the QS World University Rankings (2025)  placed nine Iranian universities among the world’s top institutes, compared with seven universities in 2024.

This year's ranking featured over 1,500 institutions across 105 higher education systems.

Sharif University of Technology (with a rank of 342), University of Tehran (368), Amirkabir University of Technology (403), Iran University of Science and Technology (436), and Isfahan University of Technology (489) were ranked first to fifth, respectively.

Tabriz University (552), Shiraz University (691-700), Shahid Beheshti University (851-900), and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (951- 1000) were other top Iranian universities included in the ranking.

A total of 29 Islamic countries with 270 universities were included in this ranking.

Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey ranked first to third respectively in terms of the number of universities. Iran ranked 11th among Islamic nations in this year's QS ranking.

SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) 2024  placed 197 Iranian universities among the top institutions in the world compared to 194 universities in 2023.

The SIR is a classification of academic and research-related institutions ranked by a composite indicator that combines three different sets of indicators based on research performance, innovation outputs, and societal impact measured by their web visibility.

In the latest ranking, Tehran University of  Medical Sciences  (5) and the University of Tehran (10)  were among the top 10 institutions in West Asia. They ranked 6th and 11th, respectively, in the 2023 ranking.

The Research rankings of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences and the University of Tehran were 175 and 290, respectively, in the world.

Tehran University of Medical Sciences ranking improved from 486, in 2023, to 452 in 2024 marking it the top university in Iran.

The University of Tehran was ranked 2nd in the country and 827th worldwide.

The University of Tehran was placed 1st in Business, Management, and Accounting (38th in the world), 3rd in Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, and 4th in Engineering in West Asia.

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences; Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, and Tabriz University of Medical Sciences; were placed third to fifth in the country respectively.

These institutions’ rankings in West Asia were as follows.

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences ranked 3rd in Medicine, and 6th in Dentistry.

Mashhad University of Medical Sciences ranked 4th in pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmaceutics.

Tabriz University of Medical Sciences ranked 2nd in pharmacology, Toxicology, and Pharmaceutics (47th worldwide), and 5th in Energy.

The 14th edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject 2024 included 17 Iranian universities in 17 subject entries, compared with 16 universities in 2023.

University of Tehran (346), Sharif University of Technology (401- 450) in Engineering and Technology; Tehran University of Medical Sciences (358), Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (451- 500), University of Tehran (451- 500), and Shiraz university of medical sciences (501 – 550) in Life sciences and Medicine; and University of Tehran (401-450), and Sharif University of Technology (501-550) in Natural Science are the top universities.

A total of 435 Iranian institutions were among 11,989 institutions ranked in Webometrics world ranking 2024.

Tehran University was the top among Iranian institutions. Its ranking had improved from 305 in 2023 to 285 in 2024, Mehr news agency reported.

Tehran University of Medical Sciences (445), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science (606), Sharif University of Technology (639), Amirkabir University of Technology (792), Iran Science and Technology (890), Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (920), Iran Medical Sciences University (940), Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (940), and Shahid Beheshti University (967) ranked second to tenth, respectively, in the country.

According to this year’s ranking, 338 other institutions have been ranked between 4,000 to 31,000.

According to the results of the 2023-2024 edition of the University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), 71 Iranian institutions were included in the ranking compared to 64 institutions in the 2022-2023 edition.

URAP World Ranking is based on six academic performance indicators including number of articles, citations, total document, scientific productivity, research impact, and international collaboration.

In the academic performance ranking of 71 universities in Iran, Tehran University was ranked first nationally with a global rank of 231, IRNA reported.

Tehran University of Medical Science (277), and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science (436) were ranked second and third, respectively.

In the 2023 edition of URAP, the University of Tehran was ranked first nationally with a global rank of 231.

Golestan University of Medical Science (1307), University of Hormozgan, Amol University of Special Modern Technologies, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Ilam University, University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran are institutions that have recently been ranked among the best in the world in the 2023-2024 edition.

In December 2023, the Islamic World Science Citation Center (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.