ITS Research Intelligence

Tunisia University Research Rankings

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

Research landscape

The current ITS Research Intelligence dataset contains 32 index-ready universities in Tunisia. Across those institutions, the average five-year research output is approximately 3,571 works and the average five-year citation count is approximately 21,101. The average publication-growth signal is 36.8%. 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 Tunisia

Rank	University	Country	Score	5-year works	5-year citations	Growth
#1	University of Sfax	Tunisia	71.6	16,806	123,540	10.7%
#2	University of Monastir	Tunisia	70.6	10,846	92,901	5.6%
#3	Tunis El Manar University	Tunisia	67.8	17,105	94,775	-1.1%
#4	University of Carthage	Tunisia	67.6	8,417	62,693	0.9%
#5	Tunis University	Tunisia	67.0	10,956	68,421	-19.2%
#6	University of Gabès	Tunisia	66.3	5,012	40,386	30.3%
#7	University of Sousse	Tunisia	65.7	9,020	55,806	22.4%
#8	Manouba University	Tunisia	64.7	4,318	31,848	21.1%
#9	University of Jendouba	Tunisia	62.0	2,093	15,438	96.3%
#10	University of Gafsa	Tunisia	60.2	1,718	12,251	61.2%
#11	National Engineering School of Tunis	Tunisia	59.7	3,211	17,002	-0.1%
#12	University of Kairouan	Tunisia	58.5	1,731	11,411	51.9%
#13	Tunisia Polytechnic School	Tunisia	57.9	719	6,967	-26.9%
#14	Institut Supérieur du Sport et de l’Éducation Physique de Sfax	Tunisia	57.2	478	4,319	45.9%
#15	Institut National Agronomique de Tunisie	Tunisia	55.4	1,112	5,802	-4.6%
#16	Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique de Tunisie	Tunisia	53.7	15,388	7,690	-43.8%
#17	Institut Préparatoire aux Études d'Ingénieurs de Monastir	Tunisia	50.7	338	3,381	-21.4%
#18	Université Tunis Carthage	Tunisia	50.5	557	2,785	25.5%
#19	Institut Supérieur de Biotechnologie de Sfax	Tunisia	50.4	373	2,273	31.7%
#20	Institut Supérieur de Gestion de Tunis	Tunisia	49.0	458	2,124	28.4%
#21	École Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Gabès	Tunisia	47.9	539	1,741	17.4%
#22	Tunisia Private University	Tunisia	46.8	524	1,578	94.1%
#23	Institut Supérieur des Études Technologiques de Gafsa	Tunisia	46.6	366	1,839	41.1%
#24	Higher Institute of Food Industries of Tunis	Tunisia	45.6	260	1,495	31.6%
#25	Université Ibn Khaldoun	Tunisia	44.3	525	966	44.9%
#26	Mediterranean School of Business	Tunisia	44.2	242	1,274	146.6%
#27	Institut Supérieur des Études Technologiques en Communications de Tunis	Tunisia	44.1	309	1,307	48.1%
#28	École Supérieure des Communications de Tunis	Tunisia	42.7	164	1,360	66.7%
#29	Institut Supérieur des Études Technologiques de Nabeul	Tunisia	39.8	247	814	33.3%
#30	École Supérieure Privée d'Ingénierie et de Technologies	Tunisia	39.5	220	719	100.0%
#31	Ez-Zitouna University	Tunisia	33.9	111	170	247.6%
#32	Institut des Hautes Études de Tunis	Tunisia	32.9	102	164	-9.1%

Transparent methodology

How ITS Research Score v3 is constructed

One formula applies to every index-ready institution, using the five most recent complete calendar years: 25% research output, 25% citations, 20% h-index and 5% i10-index (log-normalized so the largest universities do not dominate linearly), 15% citation impact (the institution’s percentile on citations per work, reduced below 500 works so small samples cannot win by chance), 5% publication growth and 5% international-collaboration share. When collaboration data is not yet available, the other weights are rescaled.

Data-quality controls: the unfinished current year is never counted, and a year in which recorded output jumps to more than three times the institution’s usual level while being at least 90% open access is treated as a bulk dataset or repository deposit and scored at the usual level. An affiliation check also removes institutions whose papers mostly do not name them in the author address (OpenAlex sometimes assigns a large university’s papers to a namesake school or college). Raw data are kept and every adjustment is logged. Open-access share and topic diversity are published as separate rankings and do not affect the main score. Citation impact is not field-normalized.

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.