UNIST Achieves Fourth Consecutive Domestic Win in Global University Paper Evaluation

This Year Again, UNIST Leads in Paper Quality... Ranked No.1 in Korea for 4 Consecutive Years in the Leiden Ranking

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology campus view.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) ranked first among domestic universities in the global university ranking that evaluates the quality of research papers. This recognizes the excellent research and quality of papers on a global scale.

UNIST maintained its position as the top domestic university for the fourth consecutive year in the '2020 Leiden Ranking' announced on the 8th local time. It ranked 99th worldwide. This ranking, published by Leiden University in the Netherlands, evaluates the impact of papers published by each university rather than the university's reputation or size.

The Leiden Ranking, which targets universities that published more than 800 papers over the recent four years (2015?2018), analyzed 1,176 universities from 65 countries this year (compared to 963 universities from 56 countries last year). The ranking is based on the proportion of highly cited papers (top 10%) among the papers published by each university.

During the evaluation period, UNIST published a total of 1,998 papers (based on Fractional Counting). Among these, 278 papers were in the top 10% by citation, accounting for 13.9%. The proportion of papers in the top 1% was also 1.4%, the highest among domestic universities.

In the global ranking, Rockefeller University (33.3%) took first place, followed by MIT (24.5%), Princeton University (23.6%), Stanford University (22.0%), and Harvard University (21.6%). UNIST was the only domestic university to rank within the top 100 worldwide, placing 99th.

The domestic university rankings were UNIST (13.9%), POSTECH (10.8%), KAIST (10.0%), Sejong University (9.8%), and Seoul National University (7.5%). UNIST first entered the ranking in 2017 and has held the top spot for four consecutive years through this year.

President Lee Yong-hoon said, “The passion of our members striving for excellent research has led to this good evaluation,” and added, “We will make further efforts to create an environment where outstanding researchers can conduct their research with peace of mind.”

This result was announced on the Leiden Ranking website on the 8th local time.