SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR), is a global ranking of research institutions which has been published since 2009. The data for the SIR World Report, as this ranking is also known, is drawn from the Scopus database and at last count they include over 9000 institutions in total. Since 2023, the SIR follows the general guidelines of a League Table. The ranking doesn’t only include universities though and is intended to be a tool for the community as a whole, not just for students looking for a university. Their stated goal is to “provide a useful metric tool for institutions, policymakers and research managers”.
Like the Nature Index, SCImago ranks institutions from five sectors of society:
- Health
- Corporate
- Government
- Non-Profit
- Higher Education
But that’s where the comparison ends. Where Nature Index is based entirely on number of articles published, the SCImago Institutions Rankings takes that data, and a fair bit more, then qualifies it and interprets it according to their established criteria.
The team at SCImagoLab, based in Spain, is made up of members of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), alumni from several Spanish universities and HE institutions. Interesting to note, SCImagoLab also lists a key member of the Webometrics team as one of their senior science advisors. The SCImago logo can be found on the Webometrics rankings because they get the data for their Excellence indicator from SCImago, so, though we are looking at two very different rankings, they are working together on some levels.
The SIR World Report also allows the user to filter their rankings for 19 subjects/fields with an additional 58 subsets for a total of 77 subject-related lists.
Aside from the global rankings mentioned above, SCImago publishes a yearly report on Ibero American higher education institutions (Spain/Portugal/Latin America) based on research output which includes an analysis of their growth in terms of scientific research, or lack thereof.
Key facts about the ranking
- Publisher: Scimago Institutions, Spain
- Latest ranking publication date: 06 March, 2024
- Publication frequency: Annual
- Geographic focus: Global
- Ranking type: University rankings.
- Year of first publication: 2009
- 4762 universities in ranking
Ranking table 2024 Scimago Institutions Rankings
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- #4
- Harvard Medical School, Harvard University
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- #30
- Yale University
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- #31
- Fudan University
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- #42
- Duke University
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- #47
- Wuhan University
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- #52
- Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Tecnology
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- #55
- Jilin University
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- #69
- KU Leuven
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- #86
- Emory University
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- #87
- Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Cornell University
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- #106
- Leiden University
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- #107
- Yonsei University
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- #110
- Aarhus University
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- #113
- Soochow University
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- #114
- Chongqing University
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- #117
- Ghent University
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- #119
- University of Zurich
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- #122
- Texas A&M University
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- #124
- Kyoto University
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- #128
- University of Padua
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- #129
- Nankai University
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- #130
- University of Utah
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- #131
- Korea University
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- #133
- Lund University
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- #134
- Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
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- #135
- Shenzhen University
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- #138
- University of Oslo
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- #139
- Princeton University
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- #144
- University of Lisbon
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- #147
- Xidian University
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- #148
- King Saud University
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- #154
- University of Leeds
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- #157
- Xiamen University
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- #161
- Jiangnan University
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- #163
- Hunan University
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- #164
- Newcastle University
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- #167
- Tel Aviv University
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- #174
- University of Porto
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- #178
- Uppsala University
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- #179
- Jiangsu University
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- #182
- Osaka University
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- #185
- McMaster University
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- #188
- Brown University
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- #196
- Cardiff University
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- #198
- University of Turin
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- #199
- Jinan University
What is really measured and how - Methodology DeepDive
The SCImago Institution Rankings focus heavily on research and innovation (80% in total, 50% and 30% respectively), looking at the articles published by each institution and the patents they file, etc. but where other rankings which have similar criteria are geared specifically towards the scientific community, SCImago’s ranking has a broader range of institution type. This is obvious just from looking at the list of subjects/fields for which they offer filtered rankings.
The criteria by which they gauge the research quality has several qualifiers particularly in terms of publications. They aren’t just counting the number of articles published, but also where they’re published and by whom, whether the institution itself publishes the articles or if they are found in national/international journals, articles in collaboration with foreign institutions… etc. They also include criteria for the impact of that work. Lastly there is a small percentage of the research score (2%) which is dedicated to the scientific talent pool, i.e. the number of different published authors based at the institution.
The final 20% of the scores calculated using the SCImago methodology are classified as societal, that is, the impact an institution has in the society that supports it, in terms of positive effect on public policy, participation of women in research, generation of knowledge related to the United Nations SDGs...
- Types of Data Collected Directly by the Publisher
- external databases only
- External databases/data providers used
- PATSTAT database
- Semrush
- Unpaywall database
- PlumX metrics
- Mendeley
- Overton database
- Criteria for including/excluding universities
inclusion criterion: all institutions which have published at least 100 articles included in the SCOPUS database during the last year of the given time period
- Criteria Classification
80% Academic Performance (research volume & reputation, citations, patents) 20% Other (societal, links, social media references, website) 00% Student Experience
- Research publications and citations
- Academic reputation - survey or other
- Student Survey
- Internationalization (% of foreign staff/students/exchange)
- Employer reputation survey or Salary data
- Methodology
- https://www.scimagoir.com/methodology.php
Our take - How useful is the ranking for students
- Rating
- 3.0 / 5.0
- Popularity
- Google results for: Scimago Institutions Rankings: 254000
- PROS
- unlike similar rankings, SIR is not limited to institutions from the scientific community
- large selection of criteria used to reach the final outcome
- CONS
- not intended as a student reference
- criteria may not be considered relevant to the quality of all institution type
- Practical use
As pointed out earlier, this ranking is not intended as a guide for students looking for a university, so it really isn’t a go-to reference for students, as such. And SCImago make it clear that their intentions lie elsewhere too. I love that they refer to their ranking as “a friendly interface” and it really is easy to navigate and to view different combinations of the criteria and institutions ranked. For students in STEM related fields it can indicate which institutions have successful research programs and, given that you can filter by country, it allows you to see which schools might be best in the country where you’d like to study. All in all, SCImago presents a user-friendly ranking system to consider alongside other similar rankings.
- Criticism
I haven’t found any particular criticism of this ranking in the media, but I’ll add in my own two cents here regarding the aim to be all inclusive and how the ranking criteria may (or may not) be relevant to institutions whose focus does not lie among the sciences. A quick glance at the overall results shows clearly that scientific institutions do best with the criteria on hand here. And I’m not sure how a medical school can place thirteenth in Arts and Humanities, so, since their methodology has no specific explanation about how the subject rankings are created, it appears to me that the subject rankings are more a list of institutions where it is possible to study these subjects, as a subset of the overall ranking, and NOT a separate ranking of which institutions do the best job of teaching the chosen subjects.
Cora Lee Paddock, UniversityGuru: 20 August, 2024