Recent data from Scopus showed that the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) ranks as the first institution in Nigeria based on scholarly output for the period 2020-2023, with a total of 7025 publications from 5813 authors as of January 7 2024.

The University of Ibadan (UI) closely follows UNN with 6978 publications from 4732 authors, while the University of Ilorin UNILORIN came a distant third with 3,714 publications from 2739 authors.

University of Lagos trailed UNILORIN with 3552 publications from 2606 authors. Others are Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) with 3532 publications from 2731 authors to come 5th, while Covenant University had 3432 publications from 2303 authors to occupy the 6th position.

A closer look at the data showed that although the University of Nigeria had the highest research output, the University of Ibadan had more citations.

Publications from UNN authors within the time frame attracted 44,741, UI attracted 68,318 citations, while publications from UNILORIN attracted 25,818 citations.

Publications from UNN authors within the time frame attracted 44,741, UI attracted 68,318 citations, while publications from UNILORIN attracted 25,818 citations.

In the area of growth, the data showed that the University of Nigeria recorded a 21.9% growth in publication output from 2020-2022, while the University of Ibadan experienced a 4.3% growth within the same time frame.

UNILORIN experienced the highest growth of 25.5% among the top three universities. In the area of increase in the number of authors, UNN reported an increase of 23.9%, followed by UNILORIN with 9.8%, while UI came third with 0.5%.

According to Scopus, only publications in journals that are indexed in its database are used to calculate the institutional Scival ranking. Scopus also says that its data is crucial in university ranking because it offers insights into the actual research performance of institutions.

https://sunnewsonline.com/unn-ui-unilorin-rank-1st-2nd-3rd-in-scopus-database-on-scholarly-output/