(30 Jan 2024) When the Shanghai Ranking, also known as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), was launched in 2003, Ton van Raan, director of CWTS at the time, sounded the alarm about the problematic way in which the ranking uses bibliometric data, for instance in attributing publications to universities. In response to the Shanghai Ranking, CWTS decided to launch the Leiden Ranking, aiming to demonstrate more appropriate ways to use bibliometric data for comparing universities. While the Leiden Ranking did not gain the same visibility as the Shanghai, THE, and QS rankings, it developed a strong reputation for offering a robust, high-quality approach for comparing universities in terms of bibliometric parameters.
Today, after almost two decades, the Leiden Ranking is going to take an ambitious next step in improving bibliometric approaches for comparing universities. The Open Edition of the Leiden Ranking, launched today by CWTS, addresses one of the most challenging problems of bibliometric indicators: the lack of transparency of these indicators due to their dependence on proprietary data. Together with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI), Sesame Open Science, and OurResearch, CWTS has rebuilt the Leiden Ranking, making it fully transparent by working exclusively with open data and open source algorithms.
Find out more here.
