Introduction
Highly cited researchers are scientists or scholars who have published a
significant number of papers that have been cited by other researchers
in their field. These individuals are considered to be experts in their
field and their research is often considered to be highly influential
and important. The use of highly cited researchers is to identify
influential and respected members of a particular field, and to help
identify key research areas and trends within that field. Additionally,
highly cited researchers is also referred by institutions and funding
agencies to identify and support researchers who are making important
contributions to their field, as well as by journals to identify
potential reviewers and editorial board members.
One of the most foremost list is Highly Cited Researchers compiled by
the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) that identifies
scientists and social scientists who have published a high number of
papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective fields.
The list is based on data from the Web of Science, a database that
indexes and tracks scientific literature and conference proceedings. The
Highly Cited Researchers list is updated periodically, and it is
considered to be a measure of the impact and influence of a researcher’s
work within their field. Scientists who are included on the list are
considered to be among the leading researchers in their field, and their
work is often considered to be highly influential and important.
As a competition, Stanford University has published a new ranking of the
world’s top 2% most influential scientists across all fields using
Scopus citation data [1,2]. This database, created by Prof. John PA
Ioannidis and his team at Stanford, is widely regarded as the largest
collection of citation data and the most esteemed of its kind. This
ranking aims to avoid misuse and misinterpretation of citation metrics
as a measure of impact or excellence. To make it transparent and
supposedly better than the ISI Highly Cited Researchers, the Stanford
ranking uses “standardized citation metrics” to systematically rank
the most-cited scientists in each field and provides standardized
information on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, and
a composite indicator (c-score) to rank the top scientists in the world
[1].
The top 2% or Stanford list was first published in 2019 to provide a
ranking of scientists who have published a high number of papers that
are among the top 2% most cited in their respective fields. The list is
updated annually and the latest version, version 5, was published in
September 2022 [1,2,3].
This Top 2% list is widely considered to be a prestigious
list and is often used as a metric of a researcher’s productivity and
influence in their field. However, it is important to evaluate the list
and its methodology critically. Some criticisms of this kind of highly
cited list include that it relies heavily on the number of citations a
researcher has received, which may not always be an accurate measure of
the quality or impact of their work. Additionally, the list may be
biased towards researchers from developed countries and institutions
with strong research programs. Another critique is that the list may be
biased towards quantity over quality of research, and having many
publications does not necessarily mean that the researcher is doing
high-quality research.
Despite its limitations, the Highly Cited
Researchers and the Stanford Top 2% most influential scientists list is
still widely used as a measure of a researcher’s productivity and
influence, and being named to the list is generally considered a
significant achievement. Universities around the world proudly paraded
their researchers when this list was announced every year. University
news pompously reported that dozens of their researchers were included
on Stanford University’s list of the world’s top 2% of scientists.
This top 2% list, is widely accepted without critical analysis. As
there is no such analysis to this date, this study is the first to
judiciously examine and critique the list by analyzing the outliers of
the database. By studying the characteristics of this top 2% database,
this study aims to gain insight into the factors that contribute to the
database and identify potential misreporting and misuse. This paper goes
all the way to suggest ways to improve it, to prevent further misuse.
This is the first in the world known study that critically analyses the
world’s top 2% of scientists list.