The Citation Laureates 2023 list has been announced, recognizing a select group of influential, highly cited researchers whose contributions are on par with Nobel Prize recipients. We explore their profound impact on our world and their enduring commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, inspiring the next generation of researchers. 

We at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) at Clarivate have announced 23 new Citation Laureates, a designation that recognizes researchers of Nobel class based on citation analysis and suggests that these individuals might one day be called to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize itself. In fact, since 2002 when Clarivate began naming Citation Laureates annually, 71 Citation Laureates have gone on to receive Nobel honours.

Identifying the Citation Laureates

The selection of Citation Laureates begins with an examination of highly cited papers in the Web of Science, typically published from 1970 to the present. We focus on papers published 20 to 30 years ago. This time window constitutes something of a sweet spot in terms of Nobel Prize forecasting because the Prize is typically given only after history has shown that a specific research contribution has had an enduring and significant impact.

Of some 58 million papers (articles and proceedings) indexed in the Web of Science since 1970, only about 8,700 have been cited 2,000 times or more (.01%). This is a level of attention that most Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine, Physics, or Chemistry earn in one or more of their papers. For Economics, the threshold is around 1,000 citations.

In addition to the number of citations, our selection process considers whether the authors of the highly cited papers were the primary discoverers or individuals who extended the work of pioneers – it is the pioneers that have priority in the Nobel Assembly’s choices. We also check if the researchers have been recipients of international or national awards, which may corroborate and reinforce our selection.

We also try to imagine whether the identified achievements might be recognized in terms of the nature of past choices, since the Nobel Committees exhibit a ‘taste’ for some types of discoveries, such as those that have overturned a long-established paradigm.

Finally, we look at recent Nobel Prizes and judge whether the topics identified would likely receive attention within next few years. Although we do not forecast a topic or researchers for the Nobel Prize in the year we name them Citation Laureates, we do try to anticipate near-term awards.

Diverse fields of excellence

The Citation Laureates 2023 represent diverse disciplines, from cancer treatment to designer molecular structures, human microbiomes to synthetic gene circuits, and wealth inequality to urban economics.

Here are some examples of the high-impact work from this year’s Citation Laureates:

• In Physiology or Medicine, we applaud researchers who collectively have played a pivotal role in developing cancer immunotherapy, changing the landscape of treatment and offering new hope to patients.
• In Physics, we celebrate a pioneer whose innovative work led to technologies that have advanced data storage, allowing for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronic devices.
• In the world of Chemistry, we honour Laureates whose groundbreaking research contributed to advancements in drug delivery and nanomedicine.
• And in Economics, we recognize an economist whose influential work across urban development, housing and the economics of cities is helping us address the complex challenges and opportunities that cities face in the modern world.

You can hear their personal stories, along with other recent Citation Laureates’, on our interview video series on our website.

The impact on our world

Citation Laureates 2023 have reshaped the boundaries of human knowledge, pushing the frontiers of what is known and what is possible. And their work has undoubtedly inspired others to embark on their own journeys of discovery.

In the spirit of honouring excellence in research, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to the Citation Laureates 2023 and express our gratitude for their commitment to the pursuit of knowledge.

See who’s been selected as Citation Laureates 2023 and explore the Hall of Citation Laureates on our website.

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The exceptional individuals designated Highly Cited Researchers 2022 have published multiple highly cited papers, ranking in the top 1% by citations for field and year over the last decade. Of all the world’s researchers, they are one in 1,000.

The analysts at the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) who create the Highly Cited Researchers list use both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify influential individuals from around the globe and across many research fields. This year our selection process has been more in-depth than ever, in an effort to navigate increasing levels of research misconduct in the academic community.

Spotlight on the analysis behind the Highly Cited Researchers list

The first step in preparing our annual list includes a quantitative analysis of a decade’s worth of citation records in the Web of Science Core Collection to identify a preliminary list of candidates. All Highly Cited Researcher records are then reviewed in a second phase of deep qualitative analysis. Throughout the year we examine evidence of factors such as retractions, misconduct and extreme self-citation—all of which would detract from true community-wide research influence— and may lead to an author being excluded from the list.

For the past several years, we have excluded from our analysis highly cited papers that have been retracted. This year we extended our analysis of retracted papers because we were concerned about cases in which a putative Highly Cited Researcher’s publications that were not highly cited may have been retracted for reasons of misconduct (such as plagiarism, image manipulation and fake peer review).

To help us do this, we’ve partnered with Retraction Watch and used its unparalleled database of retractions to help us expand our qualitative analysis. Our analysts searched for evidence of misconduct in publications of candidates on our preliminary list. This extended analysis proved invaluable in identifying researchers to exclude, so this exercise will continue in future years.

Beyond this, researchers found to have committed scientific misconduct in formal proceedings conducted by a researcher’s institution, a government agency, a funder or a publisher are also excluded.

The impact of research misconduct on the Highly Cited Researchers list

In 2019 we began to exclude authors whose collection of highly cited papers revealed unusually high levels of self-citation. For each Essential Science Indicators (ESI) field, a distribution of self-citation was obtained, and extreme outliers (a very small fraction) were identified and evaluated.^[1]

Inordinate self-citation and unusual collaborative group citation (citation circles or cabals) can seriously undermine the validity of the data analyzed for Highly Cited Researchers. These activities may represent efforts to game the system and create self-generated status.

Unfortunately, it appears to us that such activity is increasing. The incentives to achieve Highly Cited Researcher status are in some nations and research systems quite high. Highly Cited Researcher status often results in rewards for a researcher, which can include:

• higher renumeration
• recruitment to other institutions (which benefit institutions in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, since the number of Highly Cited Researchers represents 20% of an institution’s score for ranking)
• offers to become affiliated researchers at other institutions in exchange for payment and a researcher’s agreement to preferentially list the contracting institution regularly on publications (this represents a shortcut to higher placement in the Academic Ranking of World Universities)

This year we extended the identification of these affiliated or guest researchers, designating these as Research Fellows or Associates. These individuals were not counted in our own ranking of nations or institutions.

More ingenious gaming methods require greater scrutiny of the publication and citation records of putative Highly Cited Researchers. For example, outsized output, in which individuals publish two or three papers per week over long periods, by relying on international networks of co-authors, raise the possibility that an individual’s high citation counts may result from co-authors alone when publishing without the individual in question. If more than half of a researcher’s citations derive from co-authors, for example, we consider this narrow rather than community-wide influence and that is not the type of evidence we look for in naming Highly Cited Researchers. Any author publishing two or three papers per week strains our understanding of normative standards of authorship and credit.

A call to the research community to uphold research integrity

Clarivate analysts use other filters to identify and exclude researchers whose publication and citation activity is unusual and suspect. We will not enumerate all the checks and filters being deployed in the interest of staying ahead of those attempting to game our identification of Highly Cited Researchers.

We can report, with the implementation of more filters this year, the number of putative Highly Cited Researchers excluded from our final list increased from some 300 in 2021 to about 550 this year.

It is concerning to anticipate that in a few years perhaps up to 10% of those we are identifying through our algorithms may be engaged in publication and citation gaming or misconduct.

This then is an explicit call for the research community to police itself through more thorough peer review and other internationally recognized procedures to ensure integrity in research and its publication.

Celebrating Highly Cited Researchers 2022

Our continuing efforts to ensure that the Highly Cited Researchers list reflects genuine, community-wide research influence, through expanding our qualitative analysis, should not detract from those named Highly Cited Researchers this year. The list is truly global, spanning 69 countries or regions and spread across a diverse range of research fields in the sciences and social sciences. Some extraordinary researchers are recognized in multiple ESI research fields, with 219 named in two fields, 28 named in three fields and 4 named in four fields.

While the United States continues to lead the world in research influence with the most Highly Cited Researchers and Harvard University once again the institution with the highest concentration of Highly Cited Researchers in the world, Mainland China, in second place, continues to close the gap. The United Kingdom (third this year) and Singapore (new to the top 10) show a remarkably high number of researchers at the very top of their fields in terms of citation impact. Indeed, the 2022 list reflects a transformational rebalancing of scientific and scholarly contributions at the top level through the globalization of the research enterprise.

Research fuels the race for knowledge. We celebrate the individuals named on the Highly Cited Researchers 2022 list for their role in driving the wheel of innovation and helping transform human ingenuity into our world’s greatest breakthroughs.

See the full list of Highly Cited Researchers 2022 or take a deeper dive into our published methodology.

^[1] For a description of the methodology used to exclude authors with very high levels of self-citation, please see: Adams, J., Pendlebury, D. and Szomszor, M., “How Much is Too Much? The Difference between Research Influence and Self-Citation Excess,” Scientometrics, 123 (2):1119–1147, May 2020.

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Clarivate draws on Web of Science publication and citation data to produce an annual list of Citation Laureates – researchers of Nobel class whose high-impact contributions have transformed their fields and changed our world for the better.

Every October, the world watches as the Nobel Assembly votes to confer their prestigious prizes. While people around the globe can’t help but speculate about who will be chosen, Clarivate is the only organization to use quantitative data in addition to qualitative assessment to provide valuable insights about who might be awarded a Nobel Prize.

Those named Citation Laureates are individuals whose research publications are highly cited and whose contributions to their fields have been extremely influential, even transformative.

As of September 2022, 64 of the Citation Laureates named by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) at Clarivate went on to receive a Nobel Prize, more than half within three years of being named on our lists. Their achievements demonstrate that high citation frequency is often an early indicator of potential recognition, and when combined with analysis of the research community’s peer judgement, we catch a glimpse of who may be in line for a Nobel Prize.

Identifying the giants of research

Each year since 2002, ISI analysts have drawn on Web of Science publication and citation data to identify influential researchers in the research areas recognized by Nobel Prizes: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics.

Because Nobel laureates typically have published one or more papers cited 2,000 or more times, the task of identifying scientists of Nobel class among millions of researchers becomes manageable since we can narrow the search to exceptionally highly cited papers and their authors.

Out of some 55 million articles and proceedings indexed in the Web of Science since 1970, only about 7,600 (.01%) have been cited 2,000 or more times. It is from the authors of this group of papers that Citation Laureates are identified and selected.

The ongoing impact of our 2022 Citation Laureates

The contributions of this year’s Citation Laureates include transformative research in breast and ovarian cancer, flexible ‘electronic skin’, the economics of happiness and wellbeing, and more. Their research has not only been foundational in their fields, but also continues to evolve and expand in ways that may touch our everyday lives.

Stuart H. Orkin, David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, is recognized as a Citation Laureate in Physiology or Medicine this year for his foundational research on the genetic basis of blood diseases and for advancing gene therapy for sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia. When asked what initially sparked his interest in his field, he said:

“I like puzzles, I like to think about how to solve a problem. I wanted to understand how gene expression is programmed during blood cell development. There are disorders such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia that affect hemoglobin and red cell function. I wanted to solve the outstanding questions there, with the ultimate goal of having that information and knowledge translated to the benefit of patients who have those disorders. Part of it is curiosity, and the other part is to try to merge that curiosity with the hope of doing good for some individuals with disease. It’s marvelous that we have the tools to be able to think about doing that. It’s sometimes not easy to do and doesn’t happen every day, but that’s the goal.”

Andrew J. Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Warwick, was identified as a Citation Laureate in Economics this year alongside Richard A. Easterlin and Richard Layard for their pioneering contributions to the economics of happiness and subjective wellbeing. Oswald said:

“When a few of us began working on the study of human happiness, all our economist colleagues thought that was completely crazy. Of course, that wasn’t a sensible reaction because what could be more important than happiness? It just wasn’t something that many researchers thought you could study. In 1993, Andrew Clark and I ran a conference at the London School of Economics called ‘The Economics of Happiness’ and put posters all over LSE, and nobody came – just nobody. It didn’t compute. But now, it does compute, and it’s popular. If you work on things that matter, then eventually the world will catch up.”

Richard Layard, Co-Director of the Community Wellbeing Programme at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, said:

“Researchers should be thinking in terms of how they can make the world a better place. When they’ve got an insight, they need to be revealing it in a proactive way to people who can implement it – policymakers, leading business figures, leading figures in the educational world, wherever it is. I’d strongly urge young researchers to get to know policymakers. That will help them to design good questions to study and will also make sure that the answers they get actually make a difference in the world.”

In the coming years, more Citation Laureates will be named and, we are confident, more will go on to receive Nobel honors. And while it is true that not all our Citation Laureates can possibly become Nobel Laureates too, their research achievements deserve to be highlighted and celebrated.

Learn more about this year’s list and view our Hall of Citation Laureates here.

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Today we unveil our annual list of Highly Cited Researchers. We congratulate some 6,600 scientists and social scientists for demonstrating significant influence among their peers in their chosen field (or fields) through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. These highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year from 2010 – 2020.

Our list recognizes that small fraction of the researcher population that contributes disproportionately to extending the frontiers of knowledge in ways that make the world healthier, richer, more sustainable and more secure.

We understand that recognition and support of this scientific elite is an important activity for both nations and research institutions, as they seek to evaluate and plan future investment to accelerate advancement.

Regions of research excellence

The United States remains home to the highest number of Highly Cited Researchers in the world again this year with 2,622, which is almost 40% of the global total. U.S. institutions represent six of the top ten. Harvard University once again is the home of the highest number, with 214.

The advance of Mainland China continues. It now boasts its highest tally ever with 934 Highly Cited Researchers named this year. In just four years, Mainland China has doubled its share of the Highly Cited Researchers population – further evidence of its expanding contribution to the global scientific community.

The United Kingdom is in third position with 492 researchers (7.5% of the total). Although its share of the total list has fallen, this is still notably high, given that the United Kingdom has a population one-fifth the size of the United States and one-twentieth the size of Mainland China.

On the other side of the world, in a country of 25 million, research institutes in Australia continue to punch above their weight. We name 332 researchers on our list at research institutes in Australia this year – an increase in share to 5% (from 4% in 2018). Australia edges into fourth place ahead of Germany. The Netherlands is sixth with 207 researchers, remarkable for a country with a small population of 17 million. Hong Kong is another impressive story, increasing its number of Highly Cited Researchers from 60 to 79.

While the headline story this year is of sizeable gains for some countries, we are also heartened to see citation impact extending further across the globe. For the first time, we welcome researchers from Bangladesh, Kuwait, Mauritius, Morocco and the Republic of Georgia to the family of the most Highly Cited Researchers.

Talent begets talent

An outstanding faculty is the lifeblood of every notable research institution, and this year our Highly Cited Researchers are based at more than 1,300 institutions all over the world. We’re pleased to showcase some institutions that excel in a competitive global environment, supporting their Highly Cited Researchers in a way that encourages collaboration, facilitates career growth and accelerates highly innovative research.

This year our executive summary shines a spotlight on some of the institutes which are home to the world’s most highly cited scientists and social scientists. We asked what it means to them to have their colleagues recognized by their global peers for their highly cited published works, and how they build an environment of support to enable all their researchers to flourish.

The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits), South Africa

There are multiple reasons that an institution attracts great talent, which makes it difficult to distill to just one or two matters. However, some factors that make Wits University appealing include their 100-year history of top scholarship (they celebrate their centenary in 2022) – a history filled with leading scholars who have been brave enough to speak truth to power, even when it was not convenient to do so, and research that has global impact, such as that of Wits alumnus and Nobel Laureate, Sydney Brenner. Similarly, Wits’ Highly Cited Researcher for 2021, Professor Frederick Raal, is world-renowned and a game-changer in advancing lifesaving treatments for familial hypercholesterolaemia.

“At Wits… we strive to achieve impact through quality research. Thus, sharing information about our Highly Cited Researchers encourages others to strive for greater quality and impact.”

Wits University has a range of mechanisms to support research excellence. The academic research career is developed around the process of building a reputation of excellence in a coherent field of knowledge.

Talent begets talent and at Wits, people begin to collaborate in an environment that encourages and expects and delivers quality.

The National University of Singapore

The National University of Singapore (NUS) is home to 32 Highly Cited Researchers in 2021. This recognition is testament to the talent of the research community, and the resources invested in research from the university, its partners and the Singapore government.

“We appreciate the role the annual list of Highly Cited Researchers plays in promoting top researchers of the university.”

NUS has invested heavily in cutting-edge research capabilities that span multiple disciplines. It has also established numerous interdisciplinary platforms where researchers of varying levels of expertise are brought together to approach their ideas collaboratively.

The university has also invested in the recruitment of top researchers from around the world to lead research programs and mentor young up-and-coming researchers. This has created a rich research ecosystem that enables researchers to make significant impact within their fields.

NUS is a research-intensive university that works closely with government and industry partners to conduct research addressing real-world needs, through knowledge generation and innovative solutions.

The University of Sydney, Australia

The University of Sydney is home to 30 Highly Cited Researchers in 2021 – making exceptional contributions to their research fields. The university is proud to recognize and support their research which is advancing knowledge and addressing key global issues.

The university invests significantly in its researchers, supporting them through career development, project funding and world-class research facilities. The university has committed to harnessing the depth and breadth of its research in innovative ways to address some of the biggest challenges facing the world today, in partnership with government, industry and community.

Specialist teams at the University of Sydney help secure competitive national funding and internal funding schemes, mentor up-and-coming researchers, provide project funding for innovative research, and facilitate collaborations on campus and with industry.

“The Clarivate list is one way of identifying and recognizing researchers who are undertaking globally significant research, which is benefiting our community.”

These researchers are at the very top of their fields, conducting important work ranging from understanding the emergence and spread of viruses, to developing new technology for renewable energy and advancing artificial intelligence. The university is proud of their success and grateful for their dedication to conducting world-class research which makes our society better.

Read our executive summary for a fuller understanding of the researchers on our list and the institutions which support them.

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Clarivate draws on Web of Science publication and citation data to reveal annual list of Citation Laureates

Each year in early October, a select handful of researchers receive science’s highest honor in the form of the Nobel Prize. Since 2002, this highly anticipated event is preceded by Clarivate citation analysts’ annual list of Citation Laureates. These influential researchers have authored extremely highly cited publications and contributed to science over decades, in ways that have transformed their fields in the present and laid the groundwork for the scientific advances of the future.

Citation as an indicator of impact

More than 50 years ago, Dr. Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and father of citation indexing for the scientific literature, published a paper which presented a table of the 50 most-cited scientists during 1967. The list contained the names of six Nobel Prize recipients as well as 10 others who went on to earn Nobel recognition, eight within a decade.

Garfield was demonstrating that citations, at least at high frequency, can serve as a strong indicator of influence and impact within a scientific field. Later research also showed a strong correlation among citations and other measures of peer recognition, including awards. This explains why something as simple as Garfield’s list of 50 most-cited scientists could capture so many Nobel laureates and Nobelists-to-be.

In the spirit of Garfield’s work, it is by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis that ISI analysts identify the annual list of world-class researchers who are deemed Citation Laureates.

“As of September 2021, 59 Citation Laureates have received the Nobel Prize, 37 within three years of being named a Citation Laureate.”

This table illustrates the citation distribution for journal articles and proceedings papers published from 1970 to 2020 in the Web of Science. Out of some 52 million papers, only 6,532 have been cited 2,000 or more times, or just .01%. Because Nobel laureates typically have published one or more papers cited 2,000 or more times, this makes the task of identifying scientists ‘of Nobel class’ among millions of researchers much more manageable as it narrows the search to exceptionally highly cited papers and their authors.

Table 1. Citation distribution for journal articles and proceedings papers, 1970 to 2020.
Source: The Web of Science

Determining a Nobel level of influence

Since 2002, Clarivate has named Citation Laureates in the areas recognized by the Nobel Prize: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. These researchers have laid the foundations for their fields, often pioneering whole new areas of science and paving the way for those who have come after them. Citation Laureates also exhibit exceptional levels of citation among their peers and have often produced multiple highly cited papers.

However, a high level of citation is only a prerequisite for selection on this prestigious list. While we say that citations at high frequency reflect contributions that have been influential in some way, we also maintain that citation data should be combined with qualitative information and human judgement. In order to do this, we analyze:

• Discovery: whether the authors of the highly cited papers were the primary discoverers within their research topic
• Awards: whether the researchers have received international or national awards for this research
• Nobel ‘taste’: whether the identified achievements ‘make sense’ alongside past choices
• Timing: whether the topics would likely receive attention or if they are ‘too similar’ to recent Nobel prizes or ‘too soon’ (Nobel recognition typically comes 20 years or more after a published discovery or contribution)

At the intersection of these quantitative and qualitative data sets, we find potential Nobel laureates who we define as Citation Laureates. To date, we have identified more than 360 Citation Laureates in our Hall of Citation Laureates. As of September 2021, 59 of these later received the Nobel Prize, 37 within three years of being named a Citation Laureate. Their achievement demonstrates once again the early association between citations in the literature, influence through a research community and peer judgement.

Celebrating the 2021 inductees to the Hall of Citation Laureates

This year we name 16 new Citation Laureates who have made significant contributions in each of the four Nobel Prize areas. Some of the topics of their highly cited research contributions include:

• identification and isolation of the Hantaan virus (hantavirus), agent of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome
• fundamental contributions to the fields of complex networks and complex systems, including work on community structure and random graph models
• pioneering research in free-radical chemistry including the role of free radicals and antioxidants in human disease
• contributions to international macroeconomics and insights on global debt and financial crises

As always, we do not attempt to predict that an individual will receive a Nobel Prize in a specific year. Rather, we identify researchers ‘of Nobel class’ who are, in the words of sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, “peers of the prize-winners in every sense except that of having the award.”[1]  While not all can possibly become Nobel laureates, we believe strongly that their research achievements ought to be highlighted and celebrated.

When the Nobel Prizes for 2021 are announced, we will discover who will be honored with the laurels of the Nobel Assembly in Stockholm. As ever, we hope that some richly deserving Citation Laureates will be among them.

Learn more about this year’s list and view our Hall of Citation Laureates here.

[1] Harriet A. Zuckerman, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States, 1977

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The history, sociology and structure of science

In his seminal 1955 paper, Garfield emphasized the importance of citation indexing for information retrieval but also noted the value of citation data for the historian, both to reveal the transmission of ideas and the extent that a paper had been cited.

He returned to the theme in 1963 and expressed his interest in computer-generated “topological network diagrams which show the chronological and derivational relationships between scientific papers and therefore scientific discoveries.” This paper references personal communication the previous year with two individuals who would figure large in the use of ISI citation data for historical and sociological research: Derek J. de Solla Price of Yale University and Robert K. Merton of Columbia University.

Derek J. de Solla Price

Price, a physicist by training and historian of science, had published Science Since Babylon[1] and would publish Little Science, Big Science[2] the year after his contact with Garfield. In both he demonstrated his interest in using the “tools of science on science itself.”

“Price laid a foundation in quantitative studies of science using ISI citation data and in doing so helped establish the field of scientometrics.”

Once made aware of the new Science Citation Index, he requested data from Garfield related to his interests. This included the nature of the research front, which he described as a growing “epidermal layer” of papers and cumulative advantage processes in citation that contribute to characteristic skewed distributions. Price laid a foundation in quantitative studies of science using ISI citation data and in doing so helped establish the field of scientometrics.

Robert K. Merton

Merton, the leading sociologist of science, also lent support to Garfield and ISI by describing citation as part of the normative behavior of scientists with respect to acknowledging intellectual property rights. He called the citation a “pellet of peer recognition” and noted the moral imperative to cite one’s colleagues in the repayment of intellectual debts.

Henry Small

Henry Small, an historian of science, arrived at ISI in 1972. He soon introduced the technique of co-citation clustering to define specialty research areas. The next year, with Belver Griffith of Drexel University, he demonstrated science mapping of the literature. This model explored the socio-cognitive structure determined by researchers themselves through their patterns of citation.

Small extended and improved techniques of science mapping, studied the validity of the maps in relation to expert opinion, and explored the connections from one realm to another, noting how these links are “threads that hold the fabric of science together.”

Laying the groundwork for the Web of Science

Price welcomed Small’s work, calling it “revolutionary in its implications.” Recognizing it as a step toward defining a natural order of research, he saw its potential to create a “giant atlas of the corpus of scientific papers that can be maintained in real time for classifying and monitoring developments as they occur” – a concept realized by the Web of Science, the world’s largest publisher-neutral citation index and research intelligence platform.

Small synthesized the interests and perspectives of Price (mapping the research front), Merton (revealing socio-cognitive relationships and structures) and Garfield (exploiting the full richness of citation data). He then extended these by describing the symbolic function of highly cited papers, exploring changing structures over time including identification of emerging topics, probing the context of citations and more.

Their collective efforts revealed the socio-cognitive structure of research, providing the foundation for quantitative studies in the history and sociology of science. From its founding in 1960, ISI introduced a range of current awareness and information retrieval products and services covering the literature of the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Today ISI continues the original business and intellectual legacy of Garfield.

Read the full chapter from David Pendlebury, “Eugene Garfield and the Institute for Scientific Information,” in the Handbook Bibliometrics.  

See how ISI continues to honor the spirit of collaboration through its Researcher Recognition programs: Highly Cited Researchers, Citation Laureates and the Eugene Garfield Award. These programs draw on our comprehensive, high-quality data from across the Web of Science to applaud researchers for their contributions to innovation in science, social science and citation analysis.

[1] Price, Derek J. de Solla. Science Since Babylon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961. ISBN 13: 9780300017984

[2] Price, Derek J. de Solla. Little Science, Big Science. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1963. ISBN-13: 978-0231085625

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Understanding the research landscape and identifying the scientific elite is our métier. We use citation data to forecast potential Nobel Prize recipients. We create maps of science that reveal emerging and hot topics as well as key players. And, in an annual exercise, we name more than 6,000 researchers whose production of multiple highly cited papers has marked them as truly influential among their peers, the Highly Cited Researchers.

While these many thousands of researchers have cause to celebrate, we are also thinking of many others who carry out vital, important work every day to innovate and to improve our futures. Particularly this year, the pandemic has prompted the public to hope for a saving solution from scientists, and in recent days, from the tireless work of thousands of researchers, two very promising vaccines have appeared. Our debt to biomedical researchers has rarely been so evident.

Today we applaud our new Highly Cited Researchers – the 1 in 1,000 global scientists and social scientists whose papers have demonstrated significant citation impact during the last decade.

This year Clarivate recognizes 6,167 individual researchers from more than 60 countries and regions. Their highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a chosen field or fields and year in the Web of Science. Identifying these key players at the leading edge of their chosen fields provides a distinct advantage for those who fund, monitor, support and advance the conduct of research, often in the face of finite resources and complex, pressing challenges.

“In the race for knowledge, it is human capital that is fundamental and this list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers who are having a great impact on the research community as measured by the rate at which their work is being cited by others.”

The scientific powerhouses

The United States continues to dominate the list as the home to the highest number of Highly Cited Researchers, with 2,650 authors, representing 41.5% of the list. However, its world share continues to decrease (from 44% in 2019). Within the U.S., Harvard University is once again the institution with the highest concentration of these researchers in the world, with 188.

Mainland China continues to produce highly cited, high profile research bolstered by strong international collaboration and an impressive translation of research into valuable intellectual property. As such, its place on the list continues to surge – it is now the home to 770 (12.1% or 1 in 8) researchers on our list – up from 636 or 10.2% in 2019. Its rank has been boosted by the remarkable entry into the top ten of Tsinghua University, Beijing, which moved up 10 places from 19^th to 9^th on the list, together with the arrival in 2020 of Peking and Zhejiang Universities into the upper echelons of the list.

Europe also has its fair share of good news. The numbers of Highly Cited Researchers based in Germany and the Netherlands have both risen this year. The Max Planck Society in Germany remains at number 5 on the list of institutions while Utrecht University (27 researchers) and Wageningen University & Research (24 researchers) in the Netherlands both moved up to the top tier of universities listed. The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics flew 20 places up the institutional ranking with the addition of a dozen Highly Cited Researchers this year.

Australian research institutes continue to punch above their weight. In a country of just 25 million, the number of researchers recognized in 2020 is 305. Australian research institutions appear to have recruited a significant number of Highly Cited Researchers in recent years while also increasing its homegrown talent.

Stellar talent

This year’s list includes 26 Nobel laureates, including three announced this year: Emmanuelle Charpentier, Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany (Chemistry); Jennifer A. Doudna, University of California, Berkeley, United States (Chemistry); and, Reinhard Genzel, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany and University of California, Berkeley, United States (Physics).

The list also identifies some truly extraordinary Highly Cited Researchers whose names you may not have heard before – nine individuals showed exceptional broad performance, recognized for being highly cited in three or more ESI categories. They are a truly global group, from North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The story this year is about global research success in countries big and small. Researchers from Colombia, Estonia, French Polynesia, Iceland, Luxembourg and Nigeria – amongst many others – stand alongside the scientific superpowers. Their success and our futures are intertwined.

Click here to see the full Highly Cited Researchers 2020 list and read more about the selection methodology and further analysis. 

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In early October each year, the Nobel Assembly confers science’s highest honors with the Nobel Prizes. As done since 2002, Clarivate analysts again draw on Web of Science publication and citation data to reveal the 2020 list of Citation Laureates. These giants of research have authored publications cited at high frequency and contributed to science in ways that have been transformative, even revolutionary.

Citations as a herald of influence

Fifty years ago, Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and father of citation indexing for scientific literature, published “Citation Indexing for Studying Science” (Nature, 227, 669-671, 1970). This paper presented a table of the 50 most-cited scientists during the year 1967.

The list contained the names of six Nobel Prize recipients as well as ten others who went on to earn Nobel recognition, eight within a decade. Garfield was demonstrating that citations in the journal literature, at least at high frequency, can serve as a strong indicator of community-wide influence and individual stature.

Table 1 illustrates the citation distribution for journal articles and proceedings papers published from 1970 to 2020 in the Web of Science. Out of some 51 million papers, only 5,700 papers have been cited 2,000 or more times, or just .01%. Nobel laureates typically have published one or more papers cited 2,000 or more times. Therefore, what would otherwise seem to be an overwhelming task of identifying scientists of Nobel class among millions of researchers can be made manageable by focusing on a smaller collection of very highly cited papers and their authors.

Table 1. Citation distribution for journal articles and proceedings papers, 1970 to 2020.
Source. The Web of Science

Of course, Nobel Prizes are not handed to those with the highest number of citations. Only those deemed to have “made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics…. made the most important chemical discovery or improvement…. [and] made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine” are considered worthy of the Nobel Prize, as specified by the will of Alfred Nobel. We follow a similar approach in our selection of the Citation Laureates.

Measuring Nobel-class influence

Since 2002, Clarivate has named Citation Laureates in the areas recognized by the Nobel Prize: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. These are the giants of research, those with transformative influence upon their fields of study. Citation Laureates, as the designation implies, also exhibit exceptional levels of citation among their peers and have produced multiple highly cited papers.

However, a high level of citation is only a prerequisite for selection. While we say that citations at high frequency reflect contributions that have been influential in some way, we also emphasize that citation data should be combined with qualitative information and human judgement. An expert examination of awards, memberships and pioneering impact provides a deeper understanding of researcher influence and whether it reflects important discoveries, inventions or improvements of the kind the Nobel Prize recognizes.

The Citation Laureates are researchers of Nobel class, who are, in the words of sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, “peers of the prize-winners in every sense except that of having the award.” While not all can possibly become Nobel Laureates, their research achievements, we believe, ought to be highlighted and celebrated.

At the intersection of these data sets, we often find potential, even probable Nobel Laureates who we define as Citation Laureates. To date, we have identified more than 300 Citation Laureates. As of September 2020, 54 of these later received the Nobel Prize, 29 within two years of being named a Citation Laureate.

A fresh class of research giants

This year we name 24 new Citation Laureates with significant contributions in each of the four Nobel Prize areas. These individuals contributed highly cited papers reporting, among other topics:

• discoveries in genetics heralding personalized approaches to cancer treatment,
• fundamental studies of galaxy formation and evolution,
• advances in supramolecular chemistry through self-assembly strategies that take inspiration from nature itself, and
• studies of labor economics, especially the analysis of women’s participation and the gender pay gap.

As always, we do not attempt to predict that an individual will receive a Nobel Prize in a specific year. Rather, we identify researchers of Nobel class, who are, in the words of sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, “peers of the prize-winners in every sense except that of having the award.”   While not all can possibly become Nobel Laureates, their research achievements, we believe, ought to be highlighted and celebrated.

When the Nobel Prizes for 2020 are announced, we will learn the names of researchers graduating from Nobel-class to Nobel laureate. If the past is a guide, we expect one or more Citation Laureates in the group.

To learn more about this year’s list and view our Hall of Citation Laureates, please visit: https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/citation-laureates.  

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The Web of Science Group releases its annual list of Highly Cited Researchers.

Highly Cited Researchers are among those who have demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple papers, highly cited by their peers over the course of the last decade. These highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a chosen field or fields and year in Web of Science. Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, the Web of Science Group’s Highly Cited Researchers are one in 1,000.

The Web of Science Group recognizes 6,216 scientists and social scientists for demonstrating significant influence among their peers through publication of multiple papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year. The period surveyed in the analysis is 2008-2018.

Since UNESCO estimated the world’s population of researchers at some 7.8 million in 2015, our list calls out individuals who are far fewer than one in 1,000 with respect to contemporary citation impact.

Recognition and support of this scientific elite is an important activity for a nation or an institution in planning investments to accelerate advancement. Our Highly Cited Researchers list contributes to the identification of that small fraction of the researcher population that contributes disproportionately to extending the frontiers of knowledge and gaining for society innovations that make the world healthier, richer, more sustainable and more secure.

Mainland China second only to United States in top research talent

By comparing this year’s list to previous instalments, we note the continuing rise of Mainland China in the landscape of scientific and scholarly research. And it should be noted that our data focuses not on output but on influence at the highest level.

This year Mainland China has surpassed the United Kingdom to claim second place in number of Highly cited Researchers. In 2018, the United Kingdom was home to 546 and Mainland China to 428. The current data show 636 Highly Cited Researchers for Mainland China and 516 for the United Kingdom. Since 2014, when the Web of Science Group introduced the current methodology for selecting Highly Cited Researchers (by number of highly cited papers and not by total citations), Mainland China has increased its share some three-fold. This is evidence that an emphasis on quality of research and not merely quantity, introduced by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology about a decade ago, is paying off.

Among institutions with the greatest number of Highly Cited Researchers, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (including all its constituent research institutes) claims 101. Only the US National Institutes of Health (including all its Institutes), Harvard University, and Stanford University have more Highly Cited Researchers in residence: 145, 203, and 103, respectively. Among universities, Mainland China claims four that rank in the top 50 by number of Highly Cited Researchers: Tsinghua University, University of Electronic Science & Technology of China, University of Science and Technology of China and Zhejiang University.

Strong geographic concentration, Nobel prizes define the world’s research elite

The United States remains first by far in number of Highly Cited Researchers with 2,737, or 44%. Mainland China, at second, has 10.2% of the group, followed by the United Kingdom (8.3%), Germany (5.3%), Australia (4.4%). These five nations account for 72.2% of the world’s Highly Cited Researchers, a remarkable concentration of top talent.

Three of this year’s newly minted Nobel laureates are also 2019 Highly Cited Researchers: Gregg L. Semenza (Physiology or Medicine), John B. Goodenough (Chemistry) and Esther Duflo (Economics). In all our list includes 23 Nobel laureates. Also included in this year’s list are 57 Citation Laureates; individuals recognized by the Web of Science Group, through citation analysis, as ‘of Nobel class’ and potential Nobel Prize recipients.

As always, we welcome comments and suggestions for improved identification of influential researchers. This is the second year we included Highly Cited Researchers recognized for cross-field impact. These are scientists and social scientists who achieve the same level of influence as those chosen in a specific field through their publication of highly cited papers across several fields. We introduced identification of those with multidisciplinary citation impact based on suggestions from the research community.

To see the full list of Highly Cited Researchers 2019 and read more about the selection methodology and other details, please visit:
recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2019/

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The Web of Science Group releases its annual list of Highly Cited Researchers.

Highly Cited Researchers are among those who have demonstrated significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple papers, highly cited by their peers over the course of the last decade. These highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a chosen field or fields and year in Web of Science. Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, the Web of Science Group’s Highly Cited Researchers are one in 1,000.

The Web of Science Group recognizes 6,216 scientists and social scientists for demonstrating significant influence among their peers through publication of multiple papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year. The period surveyed in the analysis is 2008-2018.

Since UNESCO estimated the world’s population of researchers at some 7.8 million in 2015, our list calls out individuals who are far fewer than one in 1,000 with respect to contemporary citation impact.

Recognition and support of this scientific elite is an important activity for a nation or an institution in planning investments to accelerate advancement. Our Highly Cited Researchers list contributes to the identification of that small fraction of the researcher population that contributes disproportionately to extending the frontiers of knowledge and gaining for society innovations that make the world healthier, richer, more sustainable and more secure.

Mainland China second only to United States in top research talent

By comparing this year’s list to previous instalments, we note the continuing rise of Mainland China in the landscape of scientific and scholarly research. And it should be noted that our data focuses not on output but on influence at the highest level.

This year Mainland China has surpassed the United Kingdom to claim second place in number of Highly cited Researchers. In 2018, the United Kingdom was home to 546 and Mainland China to 428. The current data show 636 Highly Cited Researchers for Mainland China and 516 for the United Kingdom. Since 2014, when the Web of Science Group introduced the current methodology for selecting Highly Cited Researchers (by number of highly cited papers and not by total citations), Mainland China has increased its share some three-fold. This is evidence that an emphasis on quality of research and not merely quantity, introduced by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology about a decade ago, is paying off.

Among institutions with the greatest number of Highly Cited Researchers, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (including all its constituent research institutes) claims 101. Only the US National Institutes of Health (including all its Institutes), Harvard University, and Stanford University have more Highly Cited Researchers in residence: 145, 203, and 103, respectively. Among universities, Mainland China claims four that rank in the top 50 by number of Highly Cited Researchers: Tsinghua University, University of Electronic Science & Technology of China, University of Science and Technology of China and Zhejiang University.

Strong geographic concentration, Nobel prizes define the world’s research elite

The United States remains first by far in number of Highly Cited Researchers with 2,737, or 44%. Mainland China, at second, has 10.2% of the group, followed by the United Kingdom (8.3%), Germany (5.3%), Australia (4.4%). These five nations account for 72.2% of the world’s Highly Cited Researchers, a remarkable concentration of top talent.

Three of this year’s newly minted Nobel laureates are also 2019 Highly Cited Researchers: Gregg L. Semenza (Physiology or Medicine), John B. Goodenough (Chemistry) and Esther Duflo (Economics). In all our list includes 24 Nobel laureates. Also included in this year’s list are 57 Citation Laureates; individuals recognized by the Web of Science Group, through citation analysis, as ‘of Nobel class’ and potential Nobel Prize recipients.

As always, we welcome comments and suggestions for improved identification of influential researchers. This is the second year we included Highly Cited Researchers recognized for cross-field impact. These are scientists and social scientists who achieve the same level of influence as those chosen in a specific field through their publication of highly cited papers across several fields. We introduced identification of those with multidisciplinary citation impact based on suggestions from the research community.

To see the full list of Highly Cited Researchers 2019 and read more about the selection methodology and other details, please visit:
recognition.webofsciencegroup.com/awards/highly-cited/2019/

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