The Leiden Ranking is published annually by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University, the Netherlands. It is specifically designed to provide information to the global research community and to serve as an alternative to the big four global rankings.
The ranking is based on bibliographic information derived from the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index included the Web of Science database. Only articles and reviews in core journals are counted.
There are seven indicators of scientific impact, six of collaboration, seven of open access publishing, and five of gender diversity. Users can filter by time period, field, number of publications, and country.
The scientific impact metrics show the increasing dominance of China in the physical and natural sciences. Chinese universities now account for the top twenty institutions for publications in the physical sciences and engineering and in mathematics and computer science, and ten out of the top twenty in biomedical and health sciences and in life and earth sciences. North American, European, and Australian universities continue to lead in the social sciences and humanities.
The tables are, however, more diverse when publications in the top one percent or ten percent of journals are considered.
European institutions, especially Polish medical universities, do well for gender diversity while Dutch and British universities have top scores for open access publishing.
The top universities in selected categories (default settings) are:
Publications biomedical and health sciences; Harvard University, USA
Publications life and earth sciences; University of São Paulo, Brazil
Publications mathematics and computer science; University of Electronic Science and Technology, China
Publications physical sciences and engineering; Tsinghua University, China
Publications social sciences and humanities; Harvard University
Proportion of collaborative publications with industry; China University of Petroleum
Proportion of open access publications; University of Groningen, Netherlands
Proportion of female authorship; Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.
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