International rankings do not offer a complete picture of the quality of universities.

World rankings attract considerable attention when they are published, both within and outside universities. It is important to note, however, that they provide a limited, sometimes imperfect and even misleading picture of the overall quality of a university. That is why Leiden University has joined the More Than Our Rank initiative.

See also this Universities of the Netherlands paper, which takes a critical look at world university rankings.

CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition

To gain insight into the research output of our academics, we review the CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition each year. This tool offers information on publications from over 2,800 universities worldwide. The Open Edition is based on fully transparent data about research publications (from the OpenAlex database) and uses a transparent methodology. The tool is compiled each year by experts from the Leiden University Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS).

Not a ranking but a multidimensional tool

Unlike traditional league tables, this tool does not assign universities a single position in an overall ranking. Instead, its multidimensional approach allows users to select indicators that matter to them and create a ranking tailored to their specific needs.

At Leiden University, we monitor our performance across a range of indicators over time. One key measure for us is the proportion of our publications that rank among the 10% most cited in the discipline – known as the PP (top 10%). This reflects the scientific impact of the publications to which our researchers have contributed. This proportion has remained above 15% for several years. 

The CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition also sheds light on the share and number of open access publications and publications resulting from collaborations with industry partners or universities abroad. For these and other indicators, we can track our progress over time, explore variations across disciplines and compare our performance with other universities in the Netherlands and beyond.