Weizmann at #9 on prestigious Leiden ranking
Briefs
The Leiden University ranking for 2018, which measures the impact of scientific research, placed the Weizmann Institute at number nine internationally out of 800 institutions, making it the second-highest ranked institution outside of the United States. This is the highest ranking ever achieved by the Weizmann Institute in the annual Leiden survey, which is conducted by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. In the previous survey, the Institute was ranked tenth.
The Leiden survey is based mainly on the ratio of citations to published papers—a reflection of how other scientists take note of and value Weizmann research—rather than on the quantity of publications or any other factors. “This is a very worthwhile ranking because it focuses on the impact of scientific publications from Weizmann scientists—and clearly the impact is increasingly high,” says Prof. Daniel Zajfman, President of the Weizmann Institute.
A decade ago, the Institute placed nineteenth on the Leiden survey. In the 2018 ranking, 20 percent of scientific articles published by Weizmann Institute scientists were in the top 10 percent of the most influential publications. This is an indication both of the depth of talent at the Institute and the importance of their publications. For the time period in which the assessment was done (2013-2016), more than 2,500 articles by Weizmann scientists received more than 33,000 citations.