Stanford/Elsevier rankings 2025

Geography and Environment shines in latest rankings

The Department of Geography and Environment has reinforced its standing in the 2025 Stanford/Elsevier global rankings, with nine of its scholars placed within the top 50,000 among the world’s top 200,000 scientists. In a league table that flatters endurance as well as impact, the department’s consistency stands out.

Among 147 LSE researchers featured this year, the Geography and Environment contingent emerges with distinction. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose is the top-ranked LSE academic overall and places as the 685th researcher in the world. Eric Neumayer and Vernon Henderson sit within the top 5,000, while Michael Storper, Neil Lee, Riccardo Crescenzi, Stephen Gibbons, Hyun Bang Shin, and the late Sylvia Chant complete the list.

These rankings, compiled by researchers at Stanford University, led by Professor John Ioannides, in collaboration with Elsevier researchers, use Scopus data to parse the world’s research output across all scientific fields and sub-fields, weighing citations with an eye to both influence and rigour. Their breadth and the fact that they are now a yearly ritual, makes year-on-year stability meaningful. The department’s nine inclusions this year extend a pattern of outperformance that goes back to the initial rankings in 2019.

LSE’s total of 147 scholars in the top 200,000 speaks to the university’s research engine across disciplines. But the concentration in Geography and Environment is notable for what it says about the department’s range. Urban and regional economics, environmental governance, spatial inequality, and development — the rankings cut across these sub-fields.

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose’s status as not only LSE’s highest-ranked researcher but also as the top urban and regional planner in the world for the fourth year in a row is emblematic. Eric Neumayer’s long record in environmental politics and metrics and Vernon Henderson’s seminal work on cities and development signal the department’s coverage from the climate frontier to the urban core.

The Stanford/Elsevier exercise will not settle debates about what counts as excellence in academia. But it does perform a public service: it reminds universities that reputation is best grounded in measurable, cumulative work. LSE’s Department of Geography and Environment has once again made its case, with a portfolio that looks robust whichever way you slice it.

Key facts (2025):

• 147 LSE researchers appear in the global top 200,000.
• 9 are from Geography and Environment — all within the top 50,000 worldwide.
• Andrés Rodríguez-Pose is the top-ranked researcher at LSE, the top urban and regional planner in the ranking, and among the top 1,000 globally.
• Eric Neumayer and Vernon Henderson are within the top 5,000 globally.