As an aspirant student of higher education, you would always be interested in comparing the universities, their courses and their impact on global research. How can you make this comparison? How can you choose the best university for your interested programme of studies? University rankings provide a means for comparing higher education institutions according to various parameters. You may have heard about the world university ranking and QS. Some provide world university rankings, whereas others are specific to some countries or regions. Each ranking has a specific set of indicators used for the performance evaluation. Here we will discuss the CWTS Leiden ranking system- one popular global university ranking scheme.

CWTS Leiden is a global university ranking listed annually based on bibliometric indicators. These rankings are compiled by the Center for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands using the Clarivate analytics bibliographic database.

CWTS Leiden ranking consists of 1318 universities from 69 different countries. These universities have been selected based on their number of Web of Science-indexed publications in publications in the previous four years. For example, the CWTS Leiden ranking of 2022 analyses the bibliometric data from 2017-2021. The first edition of CWTS Leiden ranking was released in 2007.

CWTS Leiden ranking acts as a platform that offers important insights into the scientific performance of major universities worldwide. The ranking is a major indication of the research impact of the university. Through CWTS, you can check the following:

• The top-ranked universities in your chosen study-abroad destinations

• Ranking of your preferred institution

• Top universities in your field of study

The CWTS ranking orders the universities in diverse fields. The fields are identified according to the trend in contemporary research. The CWTS ranking 2023 includes various fields such as

• Biomedical and health science,

• life and health science,

• mathematics and computer science,

• Physical Science and Engineering,

• Social Science and Humanities.

How to view CWTS ranking?

Let us see how we can analyse the CWTS Leiden ranking platform. The ranking provided by the CWTS Leiden ranking system can be viewed from three different perspectives as Traditional list view, chart view and map view. In the traditional list view, you can rank the universities according to the selected indicators such as number of publications (p), number of top 10 publications (p10), and proportion of the university in top 10 publications (pp10). Using chart view, you can visualise universities in a scatter plot to analyse their performance based on selected indicators. The map view helps you to see the universities on a world map and provides a way to analyse the university's ranking geographically.

How to analyse universities using CWTS Ranking?

 CWTS Leiden ranking stands for a multifaceted perspective on university performance. You should select the indicator you wish to use to rank your place of study. The CWTS Leiden ranking provides indicators of collaboration, scientific impact, open-access publishing, and gender diversity.

The CWTS Leiden ranking offers modern bibliometric indicators compared to other university rankings. Leiden's ranking gives information about the research done at universities. Publications define research, and it forms the basis of ranking. Different ranking lists are published according to the various bibliometric indicators, such as several publications, citations per publication, and normalised field impact per publication. In addition, Leiden's ranking also ranks universities with scientific collaboration, collaborating with other universities and industry partners. CWTS Leiden ranking provides different indicators for you to explore the performance of universities.

According to the CWTS Leiden Ranking published in 2022, the top ten global universities are:

CWTS Leiden ranking 2023 is expected to be released in June 2023.

Which are the top universities in CWTS Leiden Ranking?

•  All sciences:
  • University of Oxford, United Kingdom
    
  • University College London, United Kingdom
    
  • University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
    
  • University of Melbourne, Australia
    
  • The University of Sydney, Australia
    
  • Harvard University, United States
    
  • University of Michigan, United States
    
  • Johns Hopkins University, United States
    
  • University of Toronto, Canada
    
  • University of British Columbia, Canada
    
  • University of Alberta, Canada
    
  • University College Dublin, Ireland
    
  • Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
    

• Biomedical and Health Science   

• Harvard University, United States
• University of Toronto, Canada
• Johns Hopkins University, United States
• University of Michigan, United States
• University of Pennsylvania, United States

• Life and Health Science
  • University of Florida, United States
  • University of California - Davis, United States
  • University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
  • University of British Columbia, Canada
  • University of Alberta, Canada
  • University of Guelph, Canada
  • University of Queensland, Australia
  • University of Melbourne, Australia
• Computer and Mathematics
  • University of New South Wales, Australia
  • University of Technology Sydney - Sydney, Australia
  • University of Waterloo, Canada
  • University of Toronto, Canada
  • Imperial College London, United Kingdom
  • University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • MIT, United States
  • Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
  • University of Michigan, United States

• Physical Science and Engineering
  • MIT, United States
  • Texas A&M University - College Station, United States
  • Stanford University, United States
  • University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • Imperial College London, United Kingdom
  • University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • University of Waterloo, Canada
  • University of British Columbia, Canada
  • University of New South Wales, Australia
  • Monash University, Australiae
  • University of Queensland, Australia

• Social Science and Humanities
  • Harvard University, United States
  • University of Toronto, Canada
  • University College London, United Kingdom
  • University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • University of Michigan, United States
  • NYU, United States
  • University of Melbourne, Australia
  • Pennsylvania State University, United States
  • Columbia University, United State

Which are the top best universities in CWTS Leiden ranking?

• Harvard University, United States
• University of Toronto, Canada
• Harbin Institute of Technology, United States
• University of Melbourne, Australia
• Pennsylvania State University, United States
• University of Sydney, Australia
• University of Alberta, Canada
• University College London, United Kingdom

Do you want to know more about University ranking and analysis? AECC can provide free assistance connecting you to top universities across the globe. AECC also provides personal guidance for choosing the best programs at the best universities abroad.