ITS Research Intelligence

Nicaragua University Research Rankings

Compare Nicaragua universities using recent research output, citation impact, growth and a transparent research-performance score.

Research landscape

The current ITS Research Intelligence dataset contains 18 index-ready universities in Nicaragua. Across those institutions, the average five-year research output is approximately 515 works and the average five-year citation count is approximately 613. The average publication-growth signal is 6.9%. These figures describe the institutions that pass the public quality gate; they are not intended to represent every tertiary institution in the country.

Country rankings are useful for benchmarking because they reduce some of the structural differences that make global comparisons difficult. They still should not be treated as a complete assessment of institutional quality: teaching, student outcomes, funding levels, research field mix and institutional mission are outside this research-performance score. The value of the page is in seeing who is producing research, how that activity is changing, and where citation visibility is concentrated.

Top research universities in Nicaragua

Rank	University	Country	Score	5-year works	5-year citations	Growth
#1	National Autonomous University of Nicaragua	Nicaragua	62.4	2,324	2,593	80.9%
#2	Universidad de las Américas	Nicaragua	58.5	858	1,588	181.7%
#3	National Agrarian University	Nicaragua	55.0	1,150	1,529	28.3%
#4	Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua-León	Nicaragua	52.7	676	1,400	-28.2%
#5	Universidad del Valle	Nicaragua	51.8	1,061	964	-22.5%
#6	Central American University	Nicaragua	46.8	140	521	-38.0%
#7	Universidad Cristiana Autónoma de Nicaragua	Nicaragua	46.7	319	459	10.0%
#8	Universidad Americana	Nicaragua	46.2	720	489	-93.0%
#9	Central University of Nicaragua	Nicaragua	44.8	196	553	50.0%
#10	National University of Engineering	Nicaragua	41.3	258	215	-24.3%
#11	Universidad de Tecnología y Comercio	Nicaragua	41.0	125	73	65.6%
#12	Universidad Católica Redemptoris Mater	Nicaragua	39.7	537	138	-62.6%
#13	Thomas More Universitas	Nicaragua	39.2	186	133	-5.2%
#14	Universidad Técnica de Comercio	Nicaragua	38.2	115	117	14.6%
#15	University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast	Nicaragua	36.3	159	75	0.0%
#16	Universidad Hispanoamericana	Nicaragua	35.9	185	48	6.9%
#17	Universidad Tecnológica Nicaragüense	Nicaragua	33.4	141	91	-46.4%
#18	Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University	Nicaragua	32.9	125	48	7.1%

Transparent methodology

How ITS Research Score v2 is constructed

Every index-ready institution has a base score from recent output, citations, h-index, i10-index and publication growth. After deep enrichment completes, ITS Research Score v2 uses six dimensions: 25% output strength, 30% Research Impact Score, 20% Momentum Score, 10% international-collaboration share, 5% open-access share and 10% topic-diversity signal. Output and citation-scale terms are log-normalized to reduce domination by the largest universities.

Research Impact Score combines citation intensity, h-index, two-year mean citedness when available and i10 visibility. It is intentionally not called field-normalized impact. International collaboration is based on recent works with authors from more than one country. Research diversity is an entropy-based summary of the institution’s leading topic signals, not a department count.

These indicators assess research activity only. They do not measure teaching quality, student experience, employability, reputation, finances or accreditation. Missing data are left missing rather than fabricated.