A new 2025 report by Elsevier places 2,772 Iranian researchers among the world’s top 2% scientists, based on a composite citation score derived from Scopus data and a methodology originally developed at Stanford University.
According to a newly released 2025 report by Elsevier, a total of 2,772 Iranian researchers have been included in the list of the world’s top 2% scientists, marking an increase compared to the previous edition of the ranking. The majority of their contributions fall within the fields of medicine, chemistry, engineering, and strategic enabling technologies.
As reported by IRNA’s science desk, citing the Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IranDoc), citation-based indicators remain a central tool for evaluating scientific impact. Although citation metrics have been used both effectively and problematically in the past, they continue to serve as a primary means of assessing the influence of researchers within specific scientific domains.
This global evaluation system initially developed by researchers at Stanford University analyses publication and citation data obtained from the Scopus database. It identifies the top 2% of researchers in 22 broad scientific fields and 174 subfields, based on those who receive the highest number and ratio of citations relative to peers in the same research area. The full report is available through its DOI link.
The “Top 2% Researchers” ranking assesses scientific impact using a Composite Score (C-score), which integrates six key citation-based metrics:
The composite score aims to address technical issues and biases present in traditional citation metrics, including the effect of self-citations and citations to retracted papers. This approach is intended to provide a more transparent and realistic measurement of a researcher’s scientific influence.
The new edition lists 2,772 Iranian researchers, compared to 2,503 in the previous release—showing a steady upward trend.
The evaluation includes two separate lists:
In both lists, the University of Tehran ranks first among Iranian institutions in terms of the number of researchers included.
Iranian scholars also appear prominently in chemistry and several categories of enabling and strategic technologies.