Yesterday, the CWTS Leiden Ranking was published. But it wasn’t just another ranking, it was the first open edition of the prestigious Leiden Ranking! Open in the sense that they published the algorithms used to create the ranking, but also because the open data from OpenAlex was used. That’s right, the same open source as we use in Global Campus!

At Global Campus we believe in the open future of science because academia should be transparent, open and reproducible. That’s why we chose to build our platform around the open data of OpenAlex. Up to now, the data was mostly used by innovative startups to change practice in academia but the use of the OpenAlex data in the Leiden Ranking shows that it’s now embraced by other organizations and initiatives as well.

Don’t underestimate the value of this step! These rankings (Leiden, QS, Shanghai) are used in many countries as a performance ranking that influences research policy and financing. Previously, all these rankings were a black box, but now everyone can check how the ranking was created. The traditional Leiden ranking is still published, but this open version is a first step into the inevitable future with more transparent rankings. Like in Global Campus, you can check the data source yourself if you don’t trust the results, or when you want to double check how the data was structured.

We are happy that more and more organizations are making the transition towards using open data. If you want to learn more about Global Campus and on how we are using open data in our platform, feel free to reach out!