NDSU researchers are among the top scientists in the world based upon a list compiled by Stanford University. Originally published in 2019, the rankings are based upon a researcher’s citations for both a single year (2019) and cumulative across their careers.

Entitled “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators,” the list utilizes algorithms that strive to quantify and systematically rank individuals into consistent scientific fields.

NDSU researchers and scientific field on the career-long citation impact list include:

NDSU researchers and scientific field on the 2019 citation impact list include:

The Stanford list is compiled from a set of metrics including total citations; the Hirsch h-index (that quantifies the cumulative impact of a scholar’s work); the co-authorship-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; and the number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author.

Utilizing data from abstract and citation database Scopus, the values of the metrics are then used to calculate a composite score for the most-cited researchers. These scores are provided both with and without self-citations to lessen the impact of researchers employing extreme self-citations or the use of citation farms (small clusters of researchers massively citing each other’s work). Institutional affiliation and the respective country are inferred based on most recent publications according to the Scopus data.

Besides the composite score, the list also ranks scientists by most common scientific field and two most common scientific subfields of their publications along with the percentage for each based on the standard Science-Metrix journal classification system. These classifications include 22 main fields and 176 subfields

The updated study was published in PLOS Biology.