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I was hoping to get away from the citations indicator in the THE rankings for a while but there are several comments here and elsewhere that need to be discussed.

First, I had assumed that the very high citation scores for Alexandria, and to a lesser extent other universities, were the result of a large number of citations that, while perhaps excessive, were from reputable scholars. Many of the citations to Alexandria University papers are to and from papers by Mohamed El Naschie. I assumed that his CV was evidence that he was a distinguished and esteemed scientist. Looking closely at his CV there seem to be a number of points that require clarification. There are references to academic appointments for a single calendar year, not the academic year as one would expect. There is a reference to a Professorship at "DAMTP, Cambridge" but the university, nor a college, is not mentioned. Also , there seems to be a period when El Naschie was a professor simultaneously at the Free University of Brussels, DAMTP Cambridge and the University of Surrey.

I hope that these points can be clarified. The TR citations indicator would still be a problem even if it was being skewed by heavy citation of groundbreaking research but it would be more of a problem if there any doubts, whether or not justified, about the excellence of that research.