TEHRAN – The University of Zanjan and the University of Kashan are listed among the top 100 green institutes worldwide announced by the University of Indonesia Green Metric overall ranking 2020.

The UI GreenMetric World University Ranking is an initiative of Universitas Indonesia which is being launched in 2010. Current criteria being used to rank universities were not giving credit to those that were making efforts to reduce their carbon footprint and thus help combat global climate change.

So, the world’s green universities are ranked according to six deciding factors contributing to sustainability including setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste and water management, transportation, and education worldwide.

Some 41 universities of Iran were listed among 1,000 green institutions in the ranking.

While Wageningen University and Research of the Netherlands came in first with a total score of 9,150, the University of Zanjan ranked 54th with a total score of 7,925, and the University of Kashan was placed 97th in the list with a score of 7,550.

The University of Oxford and the University of Nottingham came in second and third respectively.

Among Asian countries, the Chinese Weifang Institute of Technology placed first, while the University of Zanjan came 15th.

In the 2019 ranking, the University of Zanjan was listed 43rd, while the University of Kashan was the second Iranian institute in the list with a rank of 143rd.

Iran increases share of world's top universities

Times Higher Education has published its annual ranking of the world’s top universities for 2021, listing 47 Iranian universities, which shows an increase of 7 universities compared to the last year.

With 47 Iranian universities ranked among 1,527 top universities of 93 countries in the world in 2021 rankings, Iran achieved a great improvement in the academic field.

Some 21 Islamic countries were also listed in the ranking, however, Iran holds the highest share with 47 universities.

With a scientific growth rate of 10.4 percent in 2019, Iran ranked second among the top 25 countries in the world, next to China with a growth rate of 12.9 percent, according to the Web of Science website.

According to statistics released by the International Web of Science Database, Iran's citation rank has always been on the rise over the last eight years, from 24 in 2012 to 16 in 2019.

Iran ranks first in terms of the number of universities in the region and among Islamic countries, according to Shanghai Ranking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2020.

Two Iranian universities have been ranked among the top 100 universities in Asia, according to Webometrics Ranking of World Universities for July 2020.

Moreover, 7 Iranian universities have been listed among the best 1000 worldwide; including, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Sharif University of Technology, Tarbiat Modares University, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran University of Science and Technology.

In June, THE Asia University Rankings 2020 ranked five Iranian universities among the top 100 universities worldwide.

The Center for Science and Technology Studies Leiden Ranking has placed 36 Iranian universities in the list of over 1,000 major universities worldwide in 2020 compared with 26 universities in 2019.

Also, five Iranian universities have been placed among the world’s top 1,000 universities announced by the prestigious Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2021.

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