TEHRAN –A total of 1056 Iranian researchers have been recognized among the world’s top one percent most-cited researchers in 2024, indicating a 12 percent increase compared to 938 identified researchers in 2023, the head of the Islamic World Science Citation (ISC) Institute has said.

“The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (with 427 researchers) represents 40.44 percent, and the Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education (with 518 researchers) accounts for 49.05 percent of the most-cited Iranian researchers,” IRNA quoted Ahmad Fazelzadeh as saying.

Clinical medicine with 22.54 percent, Multidisciplinary with 21.78 percent, Engineering with 17.05 percent, Pharmacology and Toxicology with 9.66 percent, Chemistry with 8.43 percent, and Agricultural sciences with 7.01 percent held the highest shares of the most-cited researchers, respectively.

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 14th for most-cited institutes

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.

Essential Science Indicators, or ESI, is a fundamental analysis and evaluation tool that reveals emerging science trends, as well as the performance of influential individuals, academic institutions, papers, journals, countries, and regions in various fields of scientific research.

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.

The number of institutions in the subject areas of engineering was 67, chemistry 57, agricultural sciences 29, materials sciences 28, pharmacology and toxicology 27, social sciences, general sciences 21.

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