Weizmann Institute climbs to 6th in global rankings as it rebuilds from Iranian strike
The Israeli research center achieves its highest-ever position in the Leiden ranking, even as it works to recover from the $2B destruction.
The Weizmann Institute of Science has been ranked sixth in the world in the 2025 ranking of research quality published by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University, the Netherlands. This marks a rise of four places from tenth in 2024 and represents the institute’s highest position since the ranking was first introduced in 2006.
Weizmann’s position refers to the size-adjusted ranking, which accounts for the relative scale of research institutions. The achievement carries particular significance in a year when the institute suffered two missile strikes during the war with Iran, causing damage estimated at $2 billion. However, the 2025 ranking is based on data from 2020–2023, and therefore does not reflect the effects of the academic boycott of Israel that began at the end of 2023.
At the top of the list is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by Princeton University in second place, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in third, Harvard University in fourth, and Stanford University in fifth.
Weizmann’s sixth-place position places it ahead of Oxford University (7th), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia (9th), Cambridge University (10th), and UC Berkeley (11th).
A more troubling finding is the wide gap between Weizmann and other Israeli institutions. Unlike the Shanghai Ranking, which lists three Israeli universities among the world’s top 100, in the Leiden index the next Israeli institution, Hebrew University, appears only at 869th, followed by the Technion at 875th, and Tel Aviv University at 999th.
The Leiden Ranking is compiled annually by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. It is based entirely on quantitative data, not subjective surveys. The methodology evaluates the number of scientific publications, citation counts (a key indicator of scientific impact), and other metrics that account for the size and output of each research institution.
According to the 2025 ranking, between 2020 and 2023, Weizmann researchers published 2,422 scientific papers, which were collectively cited 39,185 times. More than 63% of these papers ranked in the top half of the world’s most influential scientific articles, 18% were in the top decile, and 2.5% in the top percentile, placing Weizmann among the global elite of research institutions
