REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 9, 2020—The Weizmann Institute of Science has been ranked eighth globally for research quality in a weighted (proportional) ranking conducted by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University, the Netherlands.
The Weizmann Institute is one of only two institutions outside the U.S. in the top ten (the other is Shandong University, China, which was ranked tenth). In the sub-ranking for Life and Earth Sciences, the Weizmann Institute of Science was ranked fourth in the world.
Along with other scientific achievements, the survey’s findings will be presented in the coming weeks at the Weizmann Institute’s 72nd Annual General Meeting of the International Board, held online for the first time due to COVID-19.
The prestigious Leiden Ranking is purely quantitative, and does not use subjective surveys. The data encompass the number of scientific publications by scientists from universities and research institutes around the world, the number of citations for scientific papers – indicating the quality of the research – as well as the size of the institutions.
This current ranking indicates a significant increase in the quality of research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in recent years, moving to eighth from 17th place a little over a decade ago.
Other figures from the Leiden 2020 ranking:
- 20% of the papers authored by Institute scientists were ranked in the top 10% for scientific impact.
- 24% of the papers authored by Institute scientists in the Life and Earth Sciences were ranked in the top 10% for scientific impact.
- Over 20% of the papers authored by Institute scientists in the Biomedical and Health Sciences were ranked in the top 10% for scientific impact.
- 2.5% of the scientific papers authored by Institute scientists were in the top percentile of papers for scientific impact, and 65.8% of them were in the top half of papers with the greatest impact.
- Between 2015-2018, scientific papers authored by Institute scientists garnered 36,129 citations.