Digging deeper into the recently released (Oct. 4, 2023) Stanford/Elsevier 100,000 top 2% scientists database can be fun. The selection is based on the top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above in their sub-field. The database actually contains entries for more than 200,000 people). See HERE.
I was happy to see myself again included in the database, together with other illustrious colleagues. My own primary sub-field is Logistics & Transportation (L&T), and I am globally ranked No. 37 for this sub-field on a career basis, and No. 25 on a single year (2022) basis. This is a marginal improvement vs previous years, and perhaps a surprise, given that (at least on paper) I have been working part time for about 2 years now. I am sure that this will deteriorate at some point, given my impending retirement from academia at the end of 2023, ie in about 2.5 months from now (stay tuned).The number of scientists of 5 or more citations rose to 9,617,763 in 2022. Of those, 26,803 people have L&T as their primary sub-field. Of the 26,803, the number of L&T scientists in the database (excel) that one can download is 562, and those in the top 100,000 are 141.
Dividing 37 by 26,803 yields 0.00138, meaning that on a career basis I am in the top 0.14% of my primary sub-field. The number was 0.16% a couple of years ago, so I am more or less where I was then.
And now some additional numbers, which I produced by looking at the L&T subset of the excel that I downloaded (population: 562 people).
Scientists are ranked by the c-index, which is a composite index based on as many as 40 different citation data for each scientist.
For the 562 L&T scientists in the database:
- The maximum c-index is 4.51, and the minimum is 2.75. Mine is 3.8, and I am at the No. 37 position according to this criterion.
- The maximum number of published papers by an L&T scientist is 693, and the minimum is just 17. I have 167 papers, and I am No. 120 according to this criterion.
- On a per year basis, the maximum number of papers per year is 26.5, and the minimum is just 0.5. My own number is 3.7 papers per year on the average (from 1978 to 2022) and I am No. 290 according to this criterion. Incidentally I know that this number is by no means constant, and that for me it is higher in recent years than it was in the past.
- The self-citation factor (percent of one's citations coming from other papers authored or co-authored by the same person) ranges from 45% to 0.08%. My own number is 9.1%, and I am No. 334 according to this criterion (No. 1 is the 45%).
- The ratio of the number of sole author papers divided by the number of total papers ranges from 91% to zero. It is zero because there are several people in the database who have not written a paper by themselves. My own ratio is 24%, and I am No. 84 according to this criterion.
- The ratio of the number of sole or first author papers divided by the number of total papers ranges from 100% to 2%. There is in fact one author whose name is first (either alone or with others) in all of his/her papers! My own ratio is 33% and I am No. 190 according to this criterion.
- The ratio of the number of citations of sole author papers divided by the total number of citations (excluding self citations) ranges from 98% to zero. Mine is 33% and I am No. 84 according to this criterion. Note that 33% is higher than the 24% shown in No. 5 above.
- The ratio of the number of citations of sole or first author papers divided by the total number of citations (excluding self citations) ranges from 100% to 1%. Mine is 44% and I am No. 150 according to this criterion.
- The wide ranges of the above numbers attest to the wide differences in the bibliometric profiles of the population of the L&T subset.
I did not have the time to produce the full range of higher order statistics, or investigate the secondary subfields, like I did a few years ago, see HERE.
What's the importance of all this? I have no idea.
