Dr Zaghum Umar has an excellent year with several top ranked publications that enabled him to be the 1^st ranked researcher in the Central/Western Asia region and 16^th ranked researcher in the world as per the publication ranking website (p-rank) for the year 2020. This website ranks researchers according to the quality and quantity of their research output. Each publication is assigned a score according to elite journal ranking lists. For instance, journals listed as A*, A, B and C as per the Australian Business Dean Council list (2019) are assigned scores of 1, 0.5,0.25 and 0.1 respectively. In addition, the ranking accounts for the number of coauthors.

Dr. Zaghum has published a number of A*/A ranked papers covering topics of both regional and international relevance such as Islamic Finance, GCC equity markets, Energy markets, Crypto assets, Covid-19 impact on financial markets etc. His work is highly cited and one of his papers was awarded as the most cited paper for an A-ranked journal. Dr Zaghum hopes to continue the research momentum in the following years by producing more top ranked publications.