Australia rates fourth in the world for highly-cited researchers

Data provider Clarivate releases its 2019 list of researchers with papers rated in the top 1 per cent by citation.

The ranking crunches Web of Science output in its choice of the 21 “essential science indicator” categories, (which include social sciences).

Australia is home to 271 or 4.4 per cent of HCRs, behind the US, 2737, (44 per cent), China (which Web of Science calls “Mainland China”) with 636 (10.2 per cent), the UK, 516 (8.3 per cent) and Germany, 327 (5.3 per cent).

The rest of the global top ten are Canada, with 183 HCIs, followed by the Netherlands (164), France (156), Switzerland (155) and Spain (116).

Three locals make the top institutions list; Uni Melbourne is listed as home to 34 HCIs, UNSW 30 and Uni Queensland 29. In contrast, top-placed Harvard U has 203, one hundred ahead of second place Stanford U, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences third, with 101.

This is a good result for Australian institutions – the number of HCIs based here in the 2014 WoS analysis was 80.

However, the notable rise is China, which moved from 7.9 per cent last year to 10.2 per cent this – an increase the size of the Netherlands total share of HCIs.

Local heroes: James Cook U was the only institution to congratulate its highly cited heroes before CMM’s deadline last night. The five are, Geoff Jones, (marine conservation biology), Morgan Pratchett (coral reef ecosystems), Philip Munday (climate change and marine fish), Terry Hughes, (coral reef studies) and Bill Laurance (intensive land use).