Tehran – Latest international data shows that the presence of Iranian researchers in the world’s top 2% list based on citation indicators continues to rise, indicating an improvement in the quality of the country’s scientific production.
The reputable “Updated Science-wide Author Database of Standardized Citation Indicators,” which provides an updated version of the scientist ranking based on standardized indicators, reported on September 19 that Iran experienced unprecedented growth in both one-year performance and scientific career indicators.
Based on the report, the number of highly cited Iranian researchers in the one-year performance index increased from 2,326 in 1403 (2024-2025) to 2,533 in 1404 (2025-2026).
The figures represent an increase of 207 compared to the previous year, clearly indicating the improvement in the quality and impact of the country’s scientific production in 2024, he explained.
Additionally, the number of Iranian researchers highly cited in career-wide indexes increased significantly from 1,018 in 1403 to 1,021 in 1404. A five-year trend analysis shows that we achieved this notable outcome from 433 in 1399, experiencing almost triple growth over this period.
“The long career index refers to a researcher’s scientific performance across the careers and includes the total number of citations received in researchers’ articles by the end of 2024. This index evaluates metrics such as citation count, H index, and researcher contributions to collaborative articles.”
The one-year index focuses on the quotes that an article received in a particular year. A recent report concludes that the quotes received in 2024 are the basis of the rankings, indicating current scientific influences and the ability of researchers to generate new knowledge.
The 2024 edition of the Nature Index Research Leaders report put Iran in 32nd place among research leaders around the world. This report is based on natural index data from January 1st to December 31st, 2023.
The Institute of Basic Sciences (IPM), Tehran University and Sharif University of Technology are ranked 1st to 3rd in the country.
The country ranks second in physical sciences, third in health sciences, fourth in Earth and Environmental Sciences and fifth in regional biological sciences.
Iran’s best global rankings are in Physical Science, which has a rank of 27.
The Nature Index is an open database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in high-quality natural and health science journals selected based on reputations by an independent group of researchers.
The Nature Index provides absolute counts and fractional sche accounts for article publications at the institutional and national levels, and therefore is an indicator of global high quality research output and collaboration.
Data from the Nature Index is updated regularly over the last 12 months. The database is compiled by Nature Research Intelligence, a part of Springer Nature.