Novel science-wide author databases with standardized citation indicators

MPI CEC scientists among top 2% worldwide

Citation metrics play a very important role in science. There are various parameters and indices that are supposed to indicate how successful, established or well-known a scientist is. For example, it is an extremely important criterion for decision-makers in the application process for professorships, grants, and awards.

Many citation metrics evaluate researchers mainly by the total number of citations and the h-index. (The h-index is a measure of the global perception of a scientist in professional circles. The metric is based on bibliometric analysis).

Often these metrics are misused and misinterpreted.

Last year, a group of Stanford professors created a publicly available database of more than 100,000 top scientists. The result is a list that is unprecedented.

The database takes into account standardized information on citations and other various parameters (e.g., number of papers by single authors, citations to papers by single authors, h-index, hm-index adjusted for co-authorship, citations to papers in different author positions, ...). The composite assessment eliminates some potential elements of misuse.

Thus, the team developed the most detailed and objective matrix to date and used it to create a new ranking for individual research and subject areas: With more than 8.5 million registered researchers worldwide with at least five published articles, they have identified the top 2% of the most influential scientists overall. This is the only list of its kind to date.

Among the top 2% of researchers worldwide are six active scientists from MPI CEC:

The list already intrigued large audience. It was viewed by over 1.7 million researchers worldwide.

The complete data can be viewed here: https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/3