Ranking Iranian universities based on their scientific engineering output

Universities and higher education institutions, as knowledge-based organizations, have a critical role in the development of countries; therefore, it is essential that their performance is evaluated according to specific criteria. Among the various functions of universities, research and knowledge production is significant; so, evaluating their scientific outputs should be a substantial part of a performance evaluation system. One of the most well-known methods for a scientific production evaluation is the use of scientometrics measures. In recent years, the scientific production of Iranian universities in engineering has been favorable; hence, we selected and analyzed 85,097 scientific papers from Iranian universities under the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The universities were ranked based important measures including: cumulative number of scientific outputs, number of citations, qualitative contribution, h-index, m-parameter, and g-index. Results show that the University of Tehran in both cumulative number of scientific outputs as well as number of citations, Sharif University of Technology in both h-and g- indices, Polymer & Petrochemical Institute in qualitative contribution, and Babol Noshirvani University of Technology in m-parameter as well as portion of engineering faculties in engineering outputs are the best among the surveyed universities. Moreover, our ranking has a significant correlation with that of the ISC ranking system according to the cumulative number of scientific outputs, number of citations, h-index, and g-index.