TEHRAN –A total of 453 out of 938 Iranian researchers who have been placed among the world's top one percent most-cited researchers are affiliated with medical universities, a significant increase compared to the past two years.

The latest data show that 222 out of 481, and 287 out of 841 Iranian scientists among the top one percent of the highly-cited scientists worldwide were affiliated with medical universities in 2021, and 2022, respectively. 

In 2023, Ahmad Fazelzadeh, the head of the Islamic World Science Citation (ISC) Institute, said over 900 Iranian researchers have been placed among the world's top one percent most-cited researchers, which shows a 12 percent increase compared to the previous year. 

Over the past decade, the number of highly-cited researchers in the country has been growing, according to Fazelzadeh. 

“The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology represents 40 percent, and the Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education accounts for 48 percent of the most-cited Iranian researchers,” ISNA quoted Fazelzadeh as saying.

Medicine and Health with 33 percent share, Multidisciplinary with 23 percent share, Engineering with 20.5 percent share, Basic Sciences with 12 percent share, Agriculture and Environment with 10 percent share, and Social and Human Sciences with 1.7 percent share held the highest shares of the most-cited researchers, respectively.

The University of Tehran, Tarbiat Modares University and Amirkabir University of Technology from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences and Tabriz University of Medical Sciences from the Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education have the highest number of one percent researchers.

Based on 22 subject areas, 23 percent of these researchers belong to the field of Clinical Medicine. The field of multi-disciplinary subjects with 22.6 percent and engineering with 19 percent, are ranked second and third in terms of having the greatest number of highly-cited Iranian researchers. These three fields account for about 65 percent of all highly-cited researchers in Iran.

Over 2,500 Iranians among world’s top 2% most-cited researchers

Stanford University, using Scopus data provided by Elsevier, listed 2,503 Iranian researchers among the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists in the world, a significant growth compared to 1,870 researchers in 2023.

The selection is based on the top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2 percent or above in the sub-field. This version (7) is based on the August 1, 2024, snapshot from Scopus, updated to the end of the citation year 2023.

The inclusion in the ‘Top 2%’ list is determined by several key metrics. C-score which is the composite score based on various bibliometric factors, including the total number of citations, h-index, and the number of citations with and without self-citations.

Field and Sub-field Percentiles:  scientists are classified into 22 broad fields and 176 sub-fields. Only those who rank in the top 2% of their sub-field are included.
Career-Long vs. Single-Year Impact: the ranking is available for both career-long impact and single-year performance, offering insights into both long-term contributions and recent achievements.

Iran ranks 32nd in 2024 Research Leaders worldwide

The 2024 edition of the Nature Index Research Leaders report placed Iran 32nd among Research Leaders globally. The report is based on Nature Index data from January 1 to December 31, 2023.

Institute for Fundamental Sciences (IPM), University of Tehran, and Sharif University of Technology were ranked first to third in the country.

The country was ranked second in Physical Sciences, third in Chemistry, as well as Health Sciences, fourth in Earth and Environmental Sciences, and fifth in Biological Sciences in the region.
Iran’s best global ranking was in Physical Sciences with the rank of 27.

The Nature Index is an open database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The Index tracks contributions to research articles published in high-quality natural science and health science journals, chosen based on reputation by an independent group of researchers.

The Nature Index provides absolute Count and fractional share counts of article publications at the institutional and national levels and, as such, is an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration.

Data in the Nature Index are updated regularly, with the most recent 12 months. The database is compiled by Nature Research Intelligence, part of Springer Nature.

The number of top Iranian universities and research institutes in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database has increased from 115 last year to 134 this year, ranking the country 14th worldwide, and second among Islamic countries, the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) has reported.

A total of 9,019 universities and research institutes in all subject areas are ranked by the ESI database in a ten-year period, from 2014 to 2024.

Iran’s top universities and research institutes are present in 19 subject areas, and the largest number is in the clinical medicine subject area with 74 universities and research institutes.

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