Published: 07/03/2024 / Text: Adriana Cruz

USP is the 16th highest producer of scientific articles in the world, according to the Ranking by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University, Netherlands

Praça do Relógio – Photo: Cecília Bastos/USP Images.

The ranking was released on July 3. USP dropped four positions compared to last year.

The classification evaluates the academic research produced by institutions and considers the scientific production published in the multidisciplinary database Web of Science, edited by Clarivate Analytics. In this edition, which assessed scientific production from 2019 to 2022, 1,506 universities worldwide were ranked, 95 more than in the 2023 edition.

USP is the only Ibero-American institution among the top 130 in the world. The University of Lisbon is in the 133rd position. In South America, the University of Buenos Aires is in the 448th position and the University of Chile in the 511th.

The other top-ranked Brazilian universities among the 38 classified institutions are São Paulo State University (Unesp) in 142nd position; the University of Campinas (Unicamp) in 174th; and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in 243rd position.

In this ranking, in addition to the overall classification, the institutions’ indicators were analyzed in four areas: scientific impact, collaboration (interinstitutional, international, and with industry), open access publications, and gender diversity (number of male and female authorships).

In terms of scientific impact, USP ranked 16th, and of the total 20,985 articles published during the period, 43.5% are among the top 50% in their respective fields.

Regarding collaboration, which evaluates interinstitutional, international, and industry partnerships for article production, USP appears in 13th place.

This was also USP’s ranking in the analysis of open access publications, which refers to the availability and free access to scientific research results by anyone, providing an alternative to the traditional publication model that restricts content access through paid subscriptions.

Another aspect evaluated was the number of articles published by gender, in which USP ranked 3rd, behind Harvard University and the University of Toronto. This indicator analyzes the number of female authors at the university and their proportion relative to the total number of authors.

The ranking prepared by CWTS also evaluates scientific impact, the level of collaboration, the number of open access publications, and articles published by gender in five areas of knowledge: Biomedical and Health Sciences, Life and Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Social Sciences and Humanities.