St Andrews and Dundee universities have been named among the best in the world for the impact of their scientific research.
The annual Leiden Ranking measures the scientific performance of 500 universities.
St Andrews has been placed 47th on the global list and eighth in Europe, while Dundee comes 79th in the world and 22nd in Europe.
Professor Louise Richardson, principal of St Andrews, said: “St Andrews may be one of the world’s smaller research universities but demonstrably we have global impact as so many of our academics are producing important, recognised research.
“This is a good result for St Andrews but it is also a good result for Scotland.
“As we celebrate 600 years of taking Scotland to the world, we are determined that Scotland’s first university should remain a critical international force and a means of strengthening Scotland’s contribution to matters of global concern.”
Her Dundee counterpart Professor Pete Downes said: “This ranking is a key indicator of strength and impact of research and also the international reach of institutions, so I am pleased that once again Dundee has recorded a good result.”
At subject level, Dundee was placed sixth in the UK for biomedical and health sciences.
The Leiden Ranking, which is compiled by Leiden University in the Netherlands, uses a variety of indicators of scientific impact and collaboration to judge the performance of universities.
US universities dominate the top 25 of this year’s listing.