USA dominates influential
list of researchers recognized by their peers, but global landscape
shifts as Chinese researchers capture a 12% share
LONDON, Nov. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Plc
(NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and
insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, unveiled its list of
Highly Cited Researchers™ 2020 today. The highly anticipated annual
list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence
in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple
highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn
from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for
field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation
index.
The methodology that determines the "who's who" of influential
researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by
bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for
Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to
identify the countries and research institutions where these
scientific elite are based.
The key findings for 2020 show:
- 6,167 researchers from more than 60 countries and regions have
been recognized this year.
- Whilst 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 researchers on the list, its relative share of the list
continues to decrease (44% in 2019).
- Harvard University, home to 188
researchers is once again the institution with the highest
concentration of Highly Cited Researchers in the world. Its
neighbors – the Broad Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology – join them
towards the head of the list of leading global institutions – homes
to 61 and 53 Highly Cited Researchers respectively.
- Mainland China's place on the
list continues to surge – it is now the home to 770 (12.1% or 1:8)
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,
moving up 10 places from 19th to 9th on the list together with the
arrival in 2020 of Peking and Zhejiang Universities into the upper
echelons of the list.
- Singapore shows strongly,
represented by Nanyang Technological
University and National University of
Singapore.
- Europe also has its fair share
of good news. The numbers of Highly Cited Researchers based in
Germany and the Netherlands have risen this year – both
showed a drop last year. The Max Planck Society in Germany remains at number 5 on the list of
institutions whilst 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 rank with the addition of a dozen Highly Cited
Researchers this year.
- 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).
- Also included are 66 Citation Laureates™: individuals
recognized by Clarivate, through citation analysis, as 'of Nobel
class' and potential Nobel Prize recipients.
- A total of 3,896 researchers are celebrated for their
performance in the 21 Essential Science Indicator™ (ESI) fields,
and 2,493 for cross-field performance, for a total of 6,167 unique
researchers - as some truly extraordinary Highly Cited Researchers
appear in more than one ESI category.
- Of the researchers named as Highly Cited in the 21 ESI fields,
nine researchers showed exceptional broad performance, recognized
for being highly cited in three or more categories. They are a
truly global group – in North
America, Europe,
Asia and the Middle East.
- 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 their number of homegrown
talent.
David Pendlebury, Senior Citation
Analyst at the Institute for Scientific Information, said: "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."
Figure 1: Highly Cited Researchers by country or
region
Rank
|
Nation
|
Number of Highly
Cited Researchers
|
Percent of Highly
Cited Researchers
|
1
|
United
States
|
2650
|
41.5
|
2
|
Mainland
China
|
770
|
12.1
|
3
|
United
Kingdom
|
514
|
8.0
|
4
|
Germany
|
345
|
5.4
|
5
|
Australia
|
305
|
4.8
|
6
|
Canada
|
195
|
3.1
|
7
|
The
Netherlands
|
181
|
2.8
|
8
|
France
|
160
|
2.5
|
9
|
Switzerland
|
154
|
2.4
|
10
|
Spain
|
103
|
1.6
|
Figure 2: Highly Cited Researchers by research
institution or organization
Institution
|
Nation
|
No. of Highly
Cited Researchers
|
1. Harvard
University
|
USA
|
188
|
2. Chinese
Academy of Sciences
|
Mainland
China
|
124
|
3.
Stanford University
|
USA
|
106
|
4. National
Institutes of Health
|
USA
|
103
|
5. Max Planck
Society
|
Germany
|
70
|
6. University
of California Berkeley
|
USA
|
62
|
7. Broad
Institute
|
USA
|
61
|
8. University
of California San Diego
|
USA
|
56
|
9. Tsinghua
University
|
Mainland
China
|
55
|
10. Washington
University of St Louis
|
USA
|
54
|
Joel Haspel, SVP Strategy,
Science at Clarivate: "Our analysis shows that the primary
contribution to global scientific papers and advancement is being
driven by the US and China. The
story this year is about both countries' research success. The
USA remains the scientific
powerhouse of the world. China's
progressive stance towards research and development over the past
two decades has delivered highly cited, high-impact papers,
increased international collaboration and translated its research
into valuable intellectual property and innovation.
"As Chinese researchers have been encouraged to productively
engage with the global research community, the US has been the
primary destination for international students seeking advanced
degrees as Chinese students form the largest number of
international students in the US. Their success and futures are
inter-twined."
The full 2020 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive
summary can be found here.
Follow us online: on Twitter @WebofScience
#HighlyCited2020.
Notes to editors:
Methodology
More than 6,000 researchers, in 21 fields of the sciences and
social sciences, and cross field categories were selected based on
the number of highly cited papers they produced over an 11-year
period from January 2009 to
December 2019. The methodology that
determines the who's who of researchers draws on data and analysis
performed by bibliometric experts at the Institute for Scientific
Information at Clarivate. It uses InCites™ and Essential Science
Indicators™ and a unique compilation of science
performance metrics and trend data based on scholarly paper
publication counts and citation data from the Web of Science™, the
world's largest publisher-neutral citation index and research
intelligence platform.
About Clarivate:
Clarivate™ is a global leader in providing solutions to
accelerate the lifecycle of innovation. Our bold mission is to help
customers solve some of the world's most complex problems by
providing actionable information and insights that reduce the time
from new ideas to life-changing inventions in the areas of science
and intellectual property. We help customers discover, protect and
commercialize their inventions using our trusted subscription and
technology-based solutions coupled with deep domain expertise. For
more information, please visit clarivate.com.
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