Over 2,500 Iranians Standing among World’s Top Scientists
Using data from the Scopus database and Elsevier publications, a team of researchers from Stanford University publishes a list of the world’s top scientists every year.
Known as the ‘Top 2% Researchers’ list, its goal is to identify and highlight scholars whose scientific work has received the highest impact and citations within the academic community.
Out of 236,313 researchers ranked by one-year performance, 2,533 Iranian scholars are included in the latest Top 2% Researchers list (2025). This represents an increase of 207 Iranian researchers compared to last year’s list.
In this year’s (2025) Top 2% Researchers list based on career-long performance, 230,333 researchers from around the world are included, of whom 1,201 are Iranian. The number of Iranian researchers on this career-long performance list has increased by 183 compared to last year. A five-year trend analysis also shows that the number of top Iranian researchers has nearly tripled over this period.
Each year, this research team publishes two types of “Top 2% Researchers” lists. The first is the one-year performance list, which ranks researchers based on the impact of their work within a single year. The second is the career-long performance list, which evaluates a researcher’s work from the start of their academic career through the most recent year, reflecting their long-term influence in the scientific community.
Earlier in October, the new results of the Times Higher Education World Rankings for 2026 had also shown that the number of Iranian academic centers on the list reached 101 universities.
The number was 85 in 2025, 75 in 2024, and only 63 in 2023.
Two Iranian universities, the University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technology, managed to stand among the top 500 universities in the world. Also, 12 other universities in Iran are ranked in the global 501-1000 range, including, Amirkabir University of Technology (501-600), Shiraz University of Technology (501-600), Noshirvani University of Babol (601-800), Golestan University (601-800), Isfahan University of Technology (601-800), Tarbiat Modarres University (601-800), Tabriz University (601-800), Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (801-1000), Khajeh Nasiruddin Tousi University (801-1000), Shahid Beheshti University (801-1000), Shiraz University (801-1000), and Urumiyeh University (801-1000).
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