by Xinhua writer Shao Haijun
THE HAGUE, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese universities have shown remarkable growth in global research output in recent years, a senior researcher at the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
The 2025 CWTS Leiden Ranking Traditional Edition, released last October, which focuses exclusively on the research performance of universities worldwide, shows that eight Chinese universities now appear in the global top ten when ranked by the number of publications in international scientific journals during the period 2020 to 2023. Zhejiang University ranks first with more than 40,000 papers.
"Compared with earlier periods, you can clearly see that the number of Chinese universities in the top ten has increased when sorting universities based on the number of publications," said Nees Jan van Eck, senior researcher and head of data science at CWTS. "This is mainly due to the rapid growth in publication output from Chinese institutions."
While Chinese universities lead in publication volume, he noted that they are less dominant when citation impact is considered.
"When you look at size-independent citation impact indicators, a different picture emerges. Chinese universities do not dominate the top ten in the same way," van Eck said.
At the same time, he observed a steady rise in research influence from Chinese institutions, particularly in highly cited work.
"If you look at indicators such as the proportion of publications of a university that belong to the top 10 percent most cited of their field, you see an upward trend for Chinese universities," van Eck said. "The proportion of highly cited publications has been increasing very steadily over time for these universities."
"If this trend continues, we may well see more Chinese universities in the global top ten or top 25 based on these citation impact indicators a few years from now," he added.
The Leiden Ranking includes two versions: a Traditional Edition covering more than 1,500 institutions, and an Open Edition based on open data from OpenAlex, which expands coverage to over 2,800 universities and provides full transparency of the underlying data and algorithms.
Unlike many global university rankings, the Leiden Ranking does not attempt to identify a single "best university."
"We don't think it is valid to answer the question of which university is the best in the world," van Eck said. "Universities perform in different dimensions. If you combine everything into one number, you no longer know what you are actually looking at."
Instead of composite scores, the Leiden Ranking presents multiple indicators across different dimensions of research performance, including scientific impact, collaboration, and open access publishing, both for science as a whole and for major disciplinary fields.
Van Eck described the ranking as more of a data tool than a traditional league table. Its main users include university leaders, policymakers and government agencies seeking to understand research trends and institutional profiles.
The researcher emphasized that rankings should support long-term development rather than drive short-term competition.
CWTS advises users to focus on indicator values rather than positions, consider multiple dimensions, and avoid over-interpreting small differences between institutions, he added. ■