Shiraz University has secured the top rank among universities in Iran in the 2023 Nature Index. According to the Public Relations Office of Shiraz University, based on the "Springer Nature" report for 2023, 112 Iranian universities have made it onto the "Nature Index," with Shiraz University leading the list of universities in the country.

It is noteworthy that this annual ranking evaluates universities worldwide based on various metrics and publishes the names of the top 500 universities. Each year, the Nature Index ranks universities globally based on their high-quality research outputs from the previous year. This ranking is based on a limited subset of universities' research outputs, and to gain a better understanding of a university's standing, other ranking systems should also be considered. The Nature Index ranks universities based on two metrics: "number of publications" and "level of contribution to authorship," by counting the number of articles published by authors in its indexed journals.

In 2023, articles published from January to December 2022 in the top 150 journals in the fields of Chemistry, Environmental Science and Geology, Life Sciences, Health, and Physical Sciences were counted and evaluated. Below is a table listing the 10 Iranian universities assessed in the Nature Index, along with the number of articles, contribution level, global rank, and national rank of each university.

Table 1. Iranian universities in the Nature Index in 2023