The Institute for Science and Technology Citation and Monitoring (ISC) published the world university rankings in 2021 based on subject areas. There are 42 universities from Iran in this ranking that are ranked in different subject areas. The University of Guilan ranks as: Agricultural Sciences (501-600), Mathematics (601-700), Civil Engineering (251-300), Mechanical Engineering (301-350), Materials Engineering (601-700) and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (251-300).

In this ranking, all subject areas fall into 6 main categories and 39 subcategories. The 6 main categories in this ranking system are: natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences and health, agricultural sciences, social sciences and humanities. In the ISC subject rankings, target universities for ranking in each subject area are universities that are among the top 700 universities in the world in terms of the number of publications in that field, and in the three-year period and at least 150 degrees have been published in each subject area and registered in the InCite database. This ranking is based on three general research criteria (70 points), international activities (15 points) and innovation (15 points). Also, the research criteria have the highest weight because of its importance.