Center for Clinical and Translational Science

The 2016 Centre for Science and Technology Studies of Leiden University ranking of 842 research institutions worldwide listed Rockefeller University in first place, with more than 28% of its papers ranked in the top 10% of those most cited. 

University President, Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, commented, “This year’s Leiden rankings confirm that our impact in the scientific community and around the world is outsized. The remarkable data are a reflection of both the importance and the influence of the scientific and clinical discoveries that our faculty contribute.”

Rockefeller’s metrics in the 2016 Leiden ranking are well above those of the next four institutions in the list: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton, in that order. Out of Rockefeller’s total publications, 5.3% were considered extremely high impact—the top one percent most widely cited—and 28.2% were high impact—in the top 10% most cited. The figures for the other members of the top five ranged from 2.7% to 4.1%, and 21% to 25%, respectively.

Rockefeller was first listed in the annual Leiden ranking, in 2014, when it also took the number one spot. The Leiden Ranking evaluates universities on the impact of research conducted by their scientists and their involvement in scientific collaboration. It focuses strictly on citation impact, using a methodology that accounts for differences between scientific fields in citation and collaboration practices.