Leiden Ranks Kwangwoon University 6th in Korea for 2025

- The results highlight Kwangwoon University’s rising research impact -​

Kwangwoon University announced its 2025 performance in the Leiden Ranking, published by CWTS at Leiden University.

November, 2025. — Kwangwoon University was ranked 6th in Korea under the traditional methodology and 7th under the newly introduced Open Edition of the 2025 Leiden Ranking, released by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. The results reaffirm the university’s research impact and its continued growth in global academic influence.

The Leiden Ranking is an annual global evaluation of university research performance. It assesses research influence using bibliometric indicators, including the proportion of publications that rank within the top 10 percent most cited worldwide, and includes institutions that meet publication thresholds in major scholarly databases.

During the 2020–2023 evaluation period, Kwangwoon University produced 1,049 papers, of which 99, or 9.5 percent, were ranked among the top 10 percent most cited globally. Based on these results, the university placed 6th nationwide and 2nd in Seoul, demonstrating a steady rise in research quality and citation impact.

Kwangwoon University also showed strong performance in the Open Edition, which evaluates universities with at least 1,500 papers indexed in the OpenAlex database. Among 1,102 papers analyzed, 121, or 11.0 percent, were included in the top 10 percent most cited worldwide, earning the university 7th place nationally under this newly introduced framework.

Through sustained investment in research capacity-building and continued scholarly innovation, the university has achieved both quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement in research output. These efforts have resulted in visible progress across international academic evaluations. In addition, 18 Kwangwoon University professors were recently named among the world’s top 2 percent scientists in a selection conducted by Stanford University and Elsevier, further highlighting the strength of the university’s faculty.

President Yoon Do-young stated, “These results confirm Kwangwoon University’s solid position within the global academic community. We will continue to strengthen research excellence and generate outstanding scholarly achievements.”