Leiden ranking 2023: France celebrated for the impact of its scientific publications

The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of the University of Leiden releases each year a series of rankings using indicators (in majority bibliometrics) relying on a quantitative analysis of scientific production in five major scientific fields (medicine, physics, life and earth science, mathematics, social science and humanities).

The indicators selected are ordered according to four criteria: the scientific impact and volume of these publications, the national and/or international collaborations they have required, as well as their free access and the gender parity among the authors of these works.

Six French universities in the Top 250

The 2023 ranking “once again illustrates France’s scientific influence on the international stage”. This is the conclusion drawn by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in the light of the results, ranking a total of 33 French institutions. This influence is particularly noticeable in terms of impact and volume of publications, since the Leiden ranking identifies 14 French institutions in the world’s Top 500 (+1 compared with last year), including 6 in the Top 250.

The list of the top six French institutions includes:

• University of Paris Cité (ranked 106th worldwide, 16th in Europe), a +9 places change worldwide and +6 places in Europe;
• Sorbonne University (110th worldwide, 18th in Europe);
• University of Paris-Saclay (ranked 123rd worldwide, 23rd in Europe);
• University of Aix-Marseille (ranked 198th worldwide, 49th in Europe);
• University of Grenoble-Alpes (ranked 216th worldwide, 55th in Europe);
• University de Montpellier (ranked 225th worldwide, 59th in Europe).

Additional institutions follow: Claude Bernard - Lyon 1 University, Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University, PSL University, University of Strasburg, University of Lorraine, University of Bordeaux, University of Lille, University of Rennes, Nantes University and University of Clermont-Auvergne.

Overall, as last year, France ranks 9th in the world in terms of the number of institutions in the Top 500, after China, the United States, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, South Korea, Canada and Italy.

Recognition of new models for French universities

The French Ministry of Research salutes these results as evidence of “the commitment and quality of scientific work” that is enabling France to “shine internationally in the field of research”.

More specifically, the Ministry notes the presence in this 2023 ranking of “experimental public institutions, which have without exception seen their position improve”. This is the case of CY Université, which appears in the ranking for the first time, along with the universities of Montpellier (ranked 225th, up 63 places), Lille (383rd, up 4 places), Rennes (454th, up 110 places) and Nantes (553rd, up 49 places). The Ministry is pleased to note that, by ranking 13 of the 16 institutions resulting from the clustering policy, the Leiden ranking “highlights the success of the new models for French universities”.

Additional rewarding criteria

In addition to the impact criterion and the volume of publications, more indicators highlight the effort by France in terms of scientific publications:

• for the level of collaboration at international scale, France also registers “remarkable positions”, notes the ministry, underlining that in total, seven French universities are ranked in the Top 100, including Sorbonne University, Paris Cité and Paris Saclay;
• for the access and level of openness to scientific articles: here too the ministry underlines the national momentum kickstarted by the national plan for open science, which is paying off, with as an example Sorbonne University ranked 76th for 52.3% of its accessible publications in open access;
• regarding gender parity among authors of publications, the Sorbonne Paris-Nord University is ranked in 187th position in the world, since 41.1% of women are authors of these publications.