China increases scientific impact
The CWTS Leiden Ranking 2013 finds that, although he USA is still the dominant player in the scientific world, new centres of science are emerging.
As in previous years, the USA's Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the university that has the highest citation impact of its publications in the world.
The ranking measures the scientific performance of 500 major universities worldwide. This year China boasts six newcomers to the list, taking the total of Chinese universities in the list to 37. Iran has five newcomers to the list and two more universities from Brazil have joined, taking the country's total in the list to 10 universities.
The latest report suggests that universities outside the USA and Europe are becoming serious players in the field – not only in number of publications, but also in scientific impact. For the first time, two Chinese universities, Nankai (rank 53) and Hunan (rank 55), have overtaken the best universities in the Netherlands in terms of impact.
