CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition 2025: The University of Freiburg placed ninth nationally among the top 1% publications
Freiburg, 31/10/2025
In the research area of biomedical and health sciences, the University of Freiburg ranks sixth in terms of total publications. In the research area of life and earth sciences, it is listed in 10th place.
The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands has published the results of the Leiden Ranking Open Edition 2025. The rankings compare universities worldwide in terms of their academic achievement based on published papers and reviews from the period 2020 to 2023.
The University of Freiburg ranks 10th in Germany in terms of total number of publications. In terms of the number of publications that rank among the top 10% and top 1% of the most frequently cited publications within a subject area in Germany, the University of Freiburg ranks ninth across all subjects. The University ranks 10th in terms of publications resulting from collaboration with commercial partners.
A national comparison of research areas at the University of Freiburg
In the research area of biomedical and health sciences, the University of Freiburg ranks sixth in terms of total number of publications. It ranks fifth and third in terms of the number of top 10% and top 1% most cited publications in this area, and seventh and fifth in terms of its share of all publications. It ranks sixth in terms of subject-normalised citation rate. The subject-normalised citation rate is an indicator that shows the citation frequency of a group of publications in a specific subject area at an institution in relation to the average number of citations of all publications (worldwide) in the same subject area, publication year and document type. The research area ranks eighth in terms of the number of publications resulting from collaboration with international partners.
Life and earth sciences at the University of Freiburg ranks tenth in terms of the number of publications and sixth in terms of the number of publications in the top 10% of most cited publications.
In terms of the proportion of publications involving commercial collaboration, the physical sciences and engineering research area ranks eighth.
About the CWTS Leiden Ranking
The Open Edition of the renowned CWTS Leiden Ranking, newly introduced in 2024, focuses on data from freely accessible sources such as the bibliographic database OpenAlex or the Research Organisation Registry (ROR) and uses exclusively open-source algorithms to calculate bibliographic indicators. Overall, the current CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition 2025 compares the research strength of 2,831 universities worldwide (including 73 German universities) based on their publications from 2020 to 2023. It evaluates scientific publications in three categories: scientific impact, collaborations with other institutions, and open access.
The CWTS Leiden Ranking Open Edition will complement the traditional CWTS Leiden Ranking, which, as in previous years, was compiled on the basis of bibliographic data from Clarivate Analytics’ proprietary Web of Science database.