Science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators

Based on data from Scopus, this indicators explore about 8 million records of scientists’ citations in order to rank a subset of 200,000 most-cited authors across all scientific fields. This is commonly referred to as Stanford ranking of the 2% best scientists.{{cite journal | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)), ((Boyack, K. W.)), ((Baas, J.)) | journal=PLOS Biology | title=Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators | volume=18 | issue=10 | pages=e3000918 | publisher=Public Library of Science | date=16 October 2020 | issn=1545-7885 | doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918| doi-access=free | pmid=33064726 | pmc=7567353 }}

The ranking is achieved via a composite indicator built on six citation metrics

• Total citations;
• Hirsch h-index;
• Coauthorship-adjusted Schreiber hm-index;
• The number of citations to papers as a single author;
• The number of citations to papers as single or first author;
• The number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author.

Data (about 200,000 records) are freely downloadable from Elsevier through the International Center for the Study of Research (ICSR) Lab.{{Citation | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)) | year=2022 | title=September 2022 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators" | volume=4 | publisher=Elsevier BV | doi=10.17632/btchxktzyw.4 | url=https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/4?fbclid=IwAR0u4xhKMuKGIsi_prZLxOIOaMPzV-LNCmoIlDYua90eybIVIyE6Sl70vyc | access-date=17 November 2022}}{{Citation | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)) | year=2024 | title=August 2024 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators" | chapter=Bibliometrics | volume=7 | publisher=Elsevier Data Repository | doi=10.17632/btchxktzyw.7 | url=https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/7 | access-date=5 October 2024}}

The index classifies researchers into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields. Different rankings are produced: career-long and most recent year, with and without self-citations. This results in four different configurations. The difference between this ranking (called as c-score) and the pure h-index is that it is sensitive to details of co-authorship and author positions: configurations such as single, first, and last author are given more emphasis. Many authors point to the importance of the index created by Ioannidis in the context of accurate, cheap and simple descriptions of research systems,{{cite journal | doi=10.1007/s11192-021-04144-1 | title=An analysis of top author citations in software engineering and a comparison with other fields | date=2021 | last1=Petersen | first1=Kai | last2=Ali | first2=Nauman Bin | journal=Scientometrics | volume=126 | issue=11 | pages=9147–9183 }}{{cite journal | doi=10.1016/j.joi.2022.101260 | title=On predicting research grants productivity via machine learning | date=2022 | last1=Tohalino | first1=Jorge A.V. | last2=Amancio | first2=Diego R. | journal=Journal of Informetrics | volume=16 | issue=2 | arxiv=2106.10700 }}

Being listed in Stanford's Rank is treated as prestigious and translates into increased visibility of scientists, which may translate into increased networking potential and for obtaining research funding.{{cite journal | doi=10.1590/0001-3765202120201952 | title=The 100,000 most influential scientists rank: The underrepresentation of Brazilian women in academia | date=2021 | last1=Oliveira | first1=Leticia DE | last2=Reichert | first2=Fernanda | last3=Zandonà | first3=Eugenia | last4=Soletti | first4=Rossana C. | last5=Staniscuaski | first5=Fernanda | journal=Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências | volume=93 | hdl=10183/233727 | hdl-access=free }}{{cite journal | vauthors=((Perneger, T.)) | journal=Research Integrity and Peer Review | title=Authorship and citation patterns of highly cited biomedical researchers: a cross-sectional study | volume=8 | issue=1 | pages=13 | date=5 September 2023 | issn=2058-8615 | doi=10.1186/s41073-023-00137-1| doi-access=free | pmid=37667388 | pmc=10478343 }} Moreover, The rank offers an opportunity to researchers in a field to compare the citation behavior of their field with others.

The papers introducing the ranking have been quoted extensively by authors working in Bibliometrics and Scientometrics. For example, reference describing an update to the methodology of this index number is citedUpdated count in Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=science-wide+author+databases+of+standardized+citation+indicators&btnG= from authors publishing in journals such as SAGE's Research on Social Work Practice,{{cite journal | vauthors=((Hodge, D. R.)), ((Turner, P. R.)) | journal=Research on Social Work Practice | title=Who are the Top 100 Contributors to Social Work Journal Scholarship? A Global Study on Career Impact in the Profession | volume=33 | issue=3 | pages=338–349 | publisher=SAGE Publications Inc | date=1 March 2023 | issn=1049-7315 | doi=10.1177/10497315221136623}} Elsevier's Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation,{{cite journal | vauthors=((Zandonà, E.)) | journal=Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation | title=Female ecologists are falling from the academic ladder: A call for action | volume=20 | issue=3 | pages=294–299 | date=1 July 2022 | issn=2530-0644 | doi=10.1016/j.pecon.2022.04.001| bibcode=2022PEcoC..20..294Z }} Springer's Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology,{{cite journal | vauthors=((Jones, A. W.)) | journal=Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology | title=Highly cited forensic practitioners in the discipline legal and forensic medicine and the importance of peer-review and publication for admission of expert testimony | volume=18 | issue=1 | pages=37–44 | date=1 March 2022 | issn=1556-2891 | doi=10.1007/s12024-021-00447-0| pmid=35129820 }} Oxford Academic's The Journals of Gerontology: Series A,{{cite journal | vauthors=((Ferraro, K. F.)) | journal=The Journals of Gerontology: Series A | title=Disciplinary Roots of 300 Top-Ranked Scientific Contributors to Gerontology: From Legacy to Enriching Our Discovery | volume=77 | issue=11 | pages=2149–2154 | date=1 November 2022 | issn=1079-5006 | doi=10.1093/gerona/glac129| pmid=36409829 | pmc=9678198 }} and Springer's Scientometrics (journal).{{cite journal | vauthors=((Singh, P. K.)) | journal=Scientometrics | title=t-index: entropy based random document and citation analysis using average h-index | volume=127 | issue=1 | pages=637–660 | date=1 January 2022 | issn=1588-2861 | doi=10.1007/s11192-021-04222-4}}{{cite journal | vauthors=((Monte-Serrat, D. M.)), ((Cattani, C.)) | journal=International Journal of Cognitive Computing in Engineering | title=Interpretability in neural networks towards universal consistency | volume=2 | pages=30–39 | date=1 June 2021 | issn=2666-3074 | doi=10.1016/j.ijcce.2021.01.002| doi-access=free }}

The older methodological paper {{cite journal | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)), ((Baas, J.)), ((Klavans, R.)), ((Boyack, K. W.)) | journal=PLOS Biology | title=A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field | volume=17 | issue=8 | pages=e3000384 | publisher=Public Library of Science | date=12 August 2019 | issn=1545-7885 | doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384| doi-access=free | pmid=31404057 | pmc=6699798 }} is quoted even more, from journal such as MIT Press's Quantitative Science Studies,{{cite journal | vauthors=((Baas, J.)), ((Schotten, M.)), ((Plume, A.)), ((Côté, G.)), ((Karimi, R.)) | journal=Quantitative Science Studies | title=Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies | volume=1 | issue=1 | pages=377–386 | date=1 February 2020 | issn=2641-3337 | doi=10.1162/qss_a_00019| doi-access=free }} Springer's Scientometrics{{cite journal | vauthors=((Szomszor, M.)), ((Pendlebury, D. A.)), ((Adams, J.)) | journal=Scientometrics | title=How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess | volume=123 | issue=2 | pages=1119–1147 | date=1 May 2020 | issn=1588-2861 | doi=10.1007/s11192-020-03417-5| doi-access=free }} and many others.

These articles variously point to the methodological papers and associated measure to discuss social aspects of the publication activity, such as unequal access to publishing of different social or national groups, including gender bias{{cite journal | vauthors=((Wu, C.)) | journal=Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie | title=The gender citation gap: Why and how it matters | volume=60 | issue=2 | pages=188–211 | date= 2023 | issn=1755-618X | doi=10.1111/cars.12428| pmid=36929271 }} or the properties of the underlying Scopus' abstract and citation database. The database has been linked to data about Retraction in academic publishing to study the frequency of retractions among highly cited researchers.{{cite journal | vauthors=((Ioannidis, J. P. A.)), ((Pezzullo, A. M.)), ((Cristiano, A.)), ((Boccia, S.)), ((Baas, J.)) | journal=PLOS Biology | title=Linking citation and retraction data reveals the demographics of scientific retractions among highly cited authors | volume=23 | issue=1 | pages=e3002999 | publisher=Public Library of Science | date=30 January 2025 | issn=1545-7885 | doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002999| doi-access=free | pmid=39883670 | pmc=11781634 }} Frietsch et al.{{cite journal | vauthors=((Frietsch, R.)), ((Gruber, S.)), ((Bornmann, L.)) | journal=Scientometrics | title=The definition of highly cited researchers: the effect of different approaches on the empirical outcome | date=21 January 2025 | url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05158-1 | issn=1588-2861 | doi=10.1007/s11192-024-05158-1 | access-date=24 February 2025| doi-access=free }} compare the Stanford ranking against the Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers database, noting that while the latter captures only 10% of Nobel laureates, the former identifies over 90%.

• Composite indicators
• Bibliometrics
• Scientometrics

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Category:Author-level metrics