AUB marks global scientific milestone with 56 faculty members among the world’s most-cited scientists
The American University of Beirut achieved a global milestone with 56 faculty members recognized among the world's top 2% most-cited scientists in the 2025 Elsevier database. The researchers span 25 departments across six faculties, reflecting AUB's broad research excellence.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The American University of Beirut (AUB) has reaffirmed its leading impact on the international stage, with 56 of its current faculty members being recognized among the world’s top two percent most-cited scientists.
The new milestone, detailed in the updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators (Elsevier, 2025 update), serves as a testament to AUB’s commitment to research and teaching excellence. It also highlights the potential of Arab scientists and their contribution to advancing research and transferring scientific knowledge worldwide.
The ranking identifies the top scientists and most influential researchers globally based on their research impact and citation influence across 22 fields and 174 subfields. The methodology, developed by researchers at Stanford University, uses standardized information from Elsevier's Scopus database on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions, and a composite indicator (c-score).
The 56 recognized AUB faculty span 25 departments across six faculties, covering a wide spectrum of fields including biology, business, chemistry, engineering, health sciences, medicine, and nutrition and food sciences. This diversity underscores the university's strength and commitment to advancing research across the sciences, social sciences, and professional schools.
Dr. Fadlo Khuri, AUB president, said, "The American University of Beirut applauds its 56 highly cited scholars. The fact that we have more such individuals today than we did in 2019 is frankly astonishing."
He added, "Ten years ago, I urged our faculty to stop counting their publications, but rather make their publications count. This is compelling evidence that the faculty of AUB have responded wholeheartedly to our appeal. We have many other exceptional scholars in the humanities who are unquestionably in the top one to two percent of their fields, but whose work cannot be measured by citations."
Context
Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut bases its educational philosophy, standards, and practices on the American liberal arts model of higher education. A teaching-centered research university, AUB has more than 790 full-time faculty members and a student body of over 9,000 students.
AUB currently offers more than 140 programs leading to bachelor’s, master’s, MD, and PhD degrees. It also provides medical education and training to students from throughout the region at its Medical Center, which includes a full-service 365-bed hospital.
Conclusion
These outstanding results reflect AUB’s dedication to its mission of research and teaching excellence as a unique global institution of higher education pursuing cutting-edge research. The achievement demonstrates the university’s long-standing investment in research that has a lasting academic and societal impact, as its community of highly-cited scholars continues to expand.
