The intention of ELSEVIER Research Impact Leaders Awards is to identify and highlight universities whose latest (from 2016-2018) publications have the greatest impact on the visibility of Polish science in the world. The award promotes the high quality of scientific research and internationalization. The jury of the Award takes into account the increase in the number of publications in the most prestigious scientific journals, publications with the participation of foreign co-authors and the citation index in a given discipline.

The award is granted in six categories: Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Natural Sciences, Humanities, Medical Sciences and Social Sciences. It is important here to increase the number of publications in the last five years in the most prestigious scientific journals and with the participation of foreign co-authors and by the level of citations in a given discipline.

The awards were presented in Warsaw at a gala ceremony during the conference "Polish universities in the global perspective - Rankings and strategic management of a university". The conference was organized by the Educational Foundation "Perspektywy" as part of the "International Visibility Project" program run jointly with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and The Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP).

The University of Gdańsk was represented and the distinction was received by the Vice-Rector for Development and Cooperation with Business and Industry prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Bielawski. SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities is the leader in the category of Humanities.
The other nominated universities are University of Gdańsk, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and University of Wrocław.