LAU has begun to reap the rewards of a concerted institutional strategy to boost its research output, both in quantity and quality.

The university’s recent performance indicators, nationally and internationally, speak of its efforts to bolster its faculty’s research by establishing and upgrading research facilities and labs in compliance with ethical standards and, at the behest of LAU President Michel E. Mawad, dedicating an annual budget of $1 million toward the President’s Intramural Research Fund (PIRF).

As a result, in 2022, the university recorded an increase of 225 percent in research output over 25 years, ninefold the worldwide rate. This year, it achieved the highest score nationally in Research Quality, one of the metrics employed by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024 that measures citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence. Overall, LAU tied for first place in THE World Rankings 2024 among universities in Lebanon.

While raising the profile of the university has been made possible by the collaboration of all LAU stakeholders, from administration to faculty, students and staff, a select number of faculty members have joined the ranks of the top two percent scientists worldwide in the past three years.

The list is based on a public database of standardized citation metrics for 100,000 top scientists in the world classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields compiled by Stanford faculty member and researcher John Ioannidis.

The 2023 list published by Scopus Elsevier includes a total of 17 LAU faculty members, up from 12 last year, from the School of Engineering, the School of Arts and Sciences, the Adnan Kassar School of Business and the Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine.

School of Engineering: Dean and Professor Michel El Khoury, Professor Chadi Abou Rjeily, Professor Wissam Fawaz, Professor Wassim Habchi, and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research and Professor Samer Saab.

Clockwise from top left: Dr. Fawaz, Dr. Abou Rjeily, Dr. Saab, Dean El Khoury, Dr. Habchi.

Adnan Kassar School of Business: Assistant Dean and Professor Guy Assaker, Professor Elie Bouri, Assistant Professor Omar Itani, Associate Professor Dervis Kirikkaleli and Associate Professor Muhammad Umar.

Clockwise from top left: Dr. Itani, Dr. Bouri, Dr. Assaker, Dr. Umar, Dr. Kirikalleli.

School of Arts and Sciences: Professor Dumitru Baleanu, Assistant Professor Sleiman El Hajj, Lecturer Marc Fakhoury, Professor Azzam Mourad and Assistant Professor Zulqurnain Sabir.

Clockwise from top left: Dr. Murad, Dr. El Hajj, Dr. Baleanu, Dr. Sabir, Dr. Fakhoury.

Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine: LAU President/Professor in Interventional Neuroradiology Michel E. Mawad and Clinical Professor Kaissar (Cesar) Yammine.

Dr. Mawad and Dr. Yammine.
 

To browse scholarly output by the LAU community, visit our open-access digital archive, the Lebanese American University Repository (LAUR).