The Ranking Web of Research Centers has been published since 2004 jointly with the Ranking Web of Universities. In the last couple of years the number of institutes has greatly increased so now there are more than 7000 organizations listed in the Directory. This is the reason why we have decided to launch it as an independent web portal.

As before the ranking provides a measurement of the activities, results and visibility of the institutions which is an indicator of impact and prestige. Rank summarizes the global performance of the institutes and centers, provides information for candidate researchers, and reflects the commitment to the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

The Ranking Web is updated twice a year (January & July). The list is very comprehensive and includes not only research bodies but other institutions closely related to scientific activities that cover topics such as technology, social sciences and humanities.

A summary of the current results (July 2008) sorted by continent is presented in the following table:

	Top 100	Top 200	Top 500
USA & Canada	54	83	186
Europe	37	95	240
Asia	7	18	46
Oceania	2	2	10
Latin-America		2	17
Africa			1

We intend to motivate both institutions and scientists to have a web presence that reflect accurately their activities. If the web performance of an institution is below the expected position according to their academic excellence, scientific authorities should reconsider their web policy, promoting substantial increases of the volume and quality of their electronic publications

The database is still incomplete, so we will thank your cooperation providing information about organizations not listed or listed incorrectly. Please feel free to send us an EMAIL so we can add the new ones to the next updated version.