Science - December 5, 2011

Top 100 again in global ranking

The academic publications of Wageningen UR have a fairly great impact, judging from another world ranking list: the Leiden ranking 2011-2012. Wageningen is at position 69.

The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden, which is responsible for the ranking, reports that Dutch universities are not doing bad at all when it comes to the impact of their academic publications. A small group which stands head and shoulders above the rest are the universities in Twente (64 th position), Wageningen (69th), Rotterdam (74th) and the Free University (75th). The universities in Eindhoven, Utrecht and Leiden are also among the top 100. All the Dutch universities score above the world's average. MIT tops the list, followed by a long list of other American universities.
Wageningen researchers publish a great deal jointly with their international colleagues, concludes CWTS. For such collaborative publications, the Leiden centre does not do a 'full counting' - in which all participating universities get a full count for a publication - but a 'fractional counting', which is determined by their share in the publication. This more defined method results in better scores for technical universities and lower positions for universities with a medical centre. However, this adjustment does not seem to make much difference for Wageningen UR; its position on the Leiden list corresponds quite neatly to its 75 th position on the list of the Times Higher Education. 
The Leiden Ranking is based on data from the Web of Science database.

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