How Egyptian universities fared in scientific publication-centered rankings: In this year’s edition of the Leiden-Dutch Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) rankings of global universities, Egyptian universities have broadly improved their performance compared to last year. Out of the 13 Egyptian universities included in the 2023 rankings, six are ranked higher than they were last year, while only three fared worse, one remained unchanged, and three other universities were included for the first time this year. The 2023 ranking covers the period from 2018-2021, while the 2022 ranking looked at the 2017-2020 period.

About the ranking: The Leiden Ranking is a bibliometric ranking of major universities worldwide. The exclusive focus on the scientific performance of universities also distinguishes the Leiden Ranking from other university rankings.The ranking provides statistics on scientific impact, collaboration, open access publishing, and gender diversity. The ranking is based on bibliographic data from the Web of Science database produced by Clarivate, with the 2023 ranking based on the number of indexed publications between 2018 and 2021. The ranking does not consider “other aspects of the performance of universities, in particular their contribution to teaching,” according to the CWTS website.

How does it differ from other major ranking systems? The ranking differs from others — such as the Times Higher Education (THE) or QS World University Rankings — primarily in its methodology. Leiden relies largely on ranking universities based on data directly from journals where universities’ scientific research was published, rather than using data or information from universities themselves. The ranking also emphasizes size-independent indicators, meaning it looks at the volume of scientific research output from each university in terms of absolute numbers and in percentage terms to account for each university’s size.

Explaining Leiden’s indicators: Universities are ranked by default by their number of publications, represented by the P indicator. This indicator is presented together with two other indicators: The P (top 10%) indicator and the PP (top 10%) indicator. These indicators show, respectively, the absolute number of highly cited publications of a university and a university’s percentage of highly cited publications.

Which Egyptian universities improved the most compared to last year: Cairo University continued to be the highest-placed Egyptian institution in the Leiden Ranking, rising 15 spots in this year’s edition to 275 overall. The absolute number of highly cited publications from the university rose to 313 from 305, with the PP indicator inching up 0.1 percentage points to 6.5%. Al Azhar University — the eighth-highest ranking Egyptian institution — staged the strongest improvement compared to last year’s ranking, rising 96 spots overall to 925. The improvement was buoyed by the university’s absolute number of cited publications rising to 133 from 81, while the percentage of its publications that were highly cited rose 1.7 percentage points to 8.7%.

Also improving y-o-y:

  • Ain Shams University (ranked second in Egypt), which rose 32 spots to 537;
  • Mansoura University (ranked third in Egypt), which rose 41 spots to 572;
  • Alexandria University (ranked fourth in Egypt), rising 40 spots to 617;
  • Zagazig University (ranked fifth in Egypt), rising 81 spots to 637;
  • Assiut University (ranked sixth in Egypt), which rose 12 spots to 832;
  • Tanta University (ranked seventh in Egypt), which rose 45 spots to 907;
  • Menoufia University (ranked ninth in Egypt), rising 42 spots to 1062; and
  • Beni Suef University (ranked 10th in Egypt), which rose 53 spots to 1145.

We also have a set of newcomers: Benha University (1232), Minya University (1311), and Kafr El Sheikh University (1380) cracked into the ranking this year for the first time. Benha University had 91 highly-cited publications between 2018-2021, accounting for 9.3% of its total scientific research output.

REMEMBER- Broadly speaking, we’re in pretty good shape when it comes to scientific and academic research, as we’ve noted previously. Egyptian university rankings have been rising over the past several years, mostly due to increased citations and more industry income. Our universities are among the fastest-rising higher education institutions in the world out of all those tracked and ranked by THE, which places extra emphasis on research capabilities. Egypt’s overall strong performance comes despite individual researchers having a hard time going about their business, mostly as a result of a lack of funding and challenges in acquiring the basic equipment necessary to complete their research.

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