Aim: To assess quantitatively the cumulative and genuine contribution of Turkish universities to science in the main fields over the past 30 years. Materials and methods: In the Citation Reports section of the Web of Science, over 70 main scientifi c institutions were searched; and publications that received 60 or more citations by May 2010 were selected. Papers having more than a minor share by international authors were excluded. Results: Only 47 universities and 6 institutions generated articles that were cited ≥60 times. Th ese publications, numbering 541, received a total of 51.215 citations. Eight universities (İstanbul University, İstanbul Technical University, Hacettepe University, Bilkent University, Middle-East Technical University, Boğaziçi University, Ankara University, and Ege University) acquired 62% of these citations. Primary authors were 335 individuals among whom 121 generated 70% of these citations. It is estimated that Turkish scientists produce about 1 per mil of the global scientifi c output, which indicates that about 40 such papers are produced annually in Turkey. A substantial variance was recorded across major universities in terms of the ratio of citations to highly-cited papers to the total citations. Engineering and geology had higher relative contributions, followed by agricultural sciences, ecology, pharmacy, chemistry and medicine, while physics, mathematics, and biology had less contributions. Conclusion: Along with research in general, research potentially to contribute to science needs specifi cally to be supported with a coherence, milieu creation and consistent long-term policy.