Montana State University has once again been recognized among some of the top universities in the world for its scientific impact and collaboration.

The university earned a spot on the CWTS Leiden Ranking for 2021, which ordered the 1,225 universities in the world with the largest contributions in international scientific journals. MSU is one of just 200 universities in the U.S. to be included on the list.

The ranking is based on universities’ scientific contributions published in scholarly journals, as well as the impact those scientific findings have on the international community. Impact is measured by the number of times the research is cited in subsequent journal articles.

MSU’s overall publication impact rank was 915, while its overall collaborations ranking was 843. According to the Leiden Ranking, MSU had 1,290 published articles appear in the citation database during the 2016-2019 period used in the latest ranking. Close to a tenth of those articles were among the top 10% of papers cited in their respective fields, signifying their high impact.

“We are proud to see our world-class faculty receive this merited recognition,” said Jason Carter, MSU vice president for research, economic development and graduate education. “MSU’s research and publications continue to have an impact globally, in addition to our service to the state and nation, and I look forward to the continuing efforts across campus to make a difference on a large scale.”

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Robert Mokwa added that MSU's continued inclusion in the rankings remains a point of pride for its research community.

“Recognitions based on actual work and impact, like the Leiden Ranking, signal that our research and creative solutions to challenging problems are touching lives all over the world”, Mokwa said. “I am proud of our faculty for their efforts in preparing students for exciting careers and for providing the state new opportunities with emerging and important sectors that contribute to the diversity of Montana’s economy. We are humbled and appreciate greatly this recognition for our creative, innovative and hard-working faculty.”

MSU tallied an all-time high for total research expenditures in 2019-2020, totaling $167 million. This marks an 8% increase over the previous year’s expenditures reported to the National Science Foundation and the seventh year in a row that research expenditures have topped $100 million.

The Leiden Ranking is based on a leading bibliographic database, the Web of Science. More information, including the full list, is available at the Leiden Ranking website.