News- Middle East: Iran has ranked first among Muslim countries with the most top universities in the CWTS Leiden Ranking, an annual global university ranking based exclusively on bibliometric indicators, a new analysis shows.

In a new study, the Islamic World Science and Technology Citation and Monitoring Institute (ISC) analyzed the Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition 2025 on the scientific performance of universities worldwide.

The ISC said that 48 Iranian universities were among the top 1,594 universities in the world.

Like 2023 and 2024, Iran in 2025 holds the top position among the Islamic countries in terms of the number of universities included in the ranking system, followed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia with 45 and 20 universities, respectively, it added.

The Leiden Ranking covers all universities with at least 800 core publications in the Web of Science database in the period 2020-2023.

It also provides indicators of scientific impact, collaboration, open access publishing, and gender diversity. Size matters when comparing universities: performance can be viewed from an absolute or a relative perspective (e.g., the number versus the percentage of highly cited publications). 

University of Tehran (ranked 166 globally), Tehran University of Medical Sciences (ranked 235), and Iran University of Science and Technology (ranked 361) gained the first to third places between Iranian universities regarding scientific impact.

Concerning collaboration and open access publishing, the only change in the list was the third place that was taken by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

In terms of gender diversity, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, University of Tehran, and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences gained the highest positions among Iranian universities.

Source: Press TV