August 27, 2024
Research quality at the Weizmann Insitute of science is now placed sixth in the world in biomedical sciences – and tenth across research fields overall – by the 2024 Leiden Ranking.
Weizmann maintains its status as one of the world’s leading research institutions after being recently placed in the top ten among universities worldwide in a weighted (proportional) ranking of research quality published annually by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University, the Netherlands (“Leiden Ranking”). This year Weizmann is ranked tenth for general research quality – alongside institutions such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and MIT – and sixth in the world for research quality in the biomedical and health sciences.
The Leiden Ranking, published since 2007, is purely quantitative and does not use subjective surveys. The data encompass the number of scientific publications by scientists from the various universities and research institutes, the number of citations for these publications – indicating the quality of the research – and additional information that takes into account the size of the institutions.
Additionally, the Weizmann Institute was recently placed among the top 100 in the 2024 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), released annually by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Weizmann was listed 69th, the highest ranking among Israel’s academic institutions; in chemistry and biology, it was ranked 44th and 45th, respectively. Unlike the Leiden Ranking, which focuses on the quality of research, the ARWU, which takes into account various parameters, is regarded as affording a built-in advantage to larger institutions over smaller ones. Still, the Weizmann Institute improved its ARWU standing in recent years, moving up from 83rd in 2022 to its current ranking.
Additional data from the 2024 Leiden Ranking:
- Between 2019-2022 Weizmann Institute scientists published 2,450 scientific papers that were cited 38,760 times.
- Overall, more than 63% of the Weizmann Institute’s scientific papers were included in the top 50% of publications with the greatest influence in their field for those years; 18% were included in the top 10% of publications; and 2.5% were in the top 1% of publications.
- In the biomedical and health sciences, more than 20% of the Weizmann Institute’s scientific papers were ranked in the top 10% of the most influential scientific publications.