Israel: Weizmann Institute of Science ranked 10th in the world for research quality

Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Science has been ranked 10th in an international ranking of research institutions and universities and is the only one of the top 10 to be located outside the US. The ranking is conducted by the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The CWTS Leiden Ranking is based solely on numeric indicators instead of question-based surveys. That includes publishing statistics for the scientists of the various universities and how often the papers are cited by other researchers -- both of which reflect the quality of the papers. These numbers are weighted accorded to the size of the research institute or university.

This rank reflects a significant rise in the quality of Weizmann Institute researchers in the last decade between 2006 and 2015. From the beginning of the decade, at the same time as the Weizmann Institute was a merely respectable 19th in the Leiden Ranking (next three non-American institutes), it has risen to the highly impressive 10th place.

According to the statement, 19 % of the research papers published by Weizmann researchers were ranked in the top 10% of scientific papers for impact. In addition, 21.4% of papers by Weizmann scientists in the life sciences and medicine were as well ranked in the top 10% for impact.

2.4% of the Institute’s scientific articles are ranked in the initial percentile for highest scientific impact, and 64.7% were in the top half for the impact factor. The CWTS as well reported that Weizmann scientists were cited 27,859 times by other researchers between 2006 and 2015.