Centre Director recognised as one of the world’s most influential researchers

The much anticipated Highly Cited Researcher list, from the Web of Science Group, identifies scientists and social scientists who produced multiple papers ranking in the top 1% by citations for their field and year of publication, demonstrating significant research influence among their peers.

Chris Thomas said: “It is great that our work is influencing others. It underlines the importance of biodiversity research, and the need to develop a sustainable future.”

The methodology that determines the who’s who of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts from the Institute for Scientific Information at the Web of Science Group. The data are taken from 21 broad research fields within Essential Science Indicators, a component of InCites. This selection method removes the citation advantage of older papers relative to recently published ones, since papers are weighed against others in the same annual cohort.

David Pendlebury, Senior Citation Analyst at the Institute for Scientific Information said: “Recognition and support of these exceptional researchers represents an important activity for a nation or an institution’s plans for efficient and accelerated advancement. The 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. These researchers create gains for society, innovation and knowledge that make the world healthier, richer, more sustainable and more secure.”

This year’s list continues to recognise researchers whose citation records position them in the very highest strata of influence and impact. This is only the second year that researchers with cross-field impact – those with exceptional broad performance based on high impact papers across several fields – have been identified.

About the Web of Science Group

Web of Science Group, a Clarivate Analytics company, organizes the world’s research information to enable academia, corporations, publishers and governments to accelerate the pace of research. It is powered by Web of Science – the world’s largest publisher-neutral citation index and research intelligence platform. Its many well-known brands also include Converis, EndNote, Kopernio, Publons, ScholarOne and the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The ‘university’ of Web of Science Group, ISI maintains the knowledge corpus upon which the index and related information and analytical content and services are built; it disseminates that knowledge externally through events, conferences and publications and it carries out research to sustain, extend and improve the knowledge base.