The Scream, by E. MunchIt's that time of the year. The 2024 edition of the Stanford/Elsevier top 2% scientists database has been released on Aug. 1, 2024, going up to year 2023. 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 c-score is a composite index based on as many as 40 different citation data for each scientist. The database actually contains entries for more than 200,000 people. See HERE.
I spotted the release a couple of days ago by accident (last year's edition came later, in Oct. 2023), and I announced it on Facebook with a concise statement of my own stats, which are as follows:
As in previous years, my own primary sub-field is Logistics & Transportation (L&T), and I am globally ranked No. 34 for this sub-field on a career basis, and No. 22 on a single year (2023) basis. Last year's numbers were No. 37 and No. 25 respectively, recording a marginal improvement over the years (a few years before I was No. 39). This improvement is perhaps a surprise, given that (at least on paper) I have been working part time for about 3 years now. I also retired fully on 31.12.2023, so I expect that at some point in time my stats will begin to be abysmally bad.
On a career basis: The number of scientists of 5 or more citations rose to 10,257,575 in 2023, up from 9,617,763 in 2022. Of those, 28,891 people have L&T as their primary sub-field (up from 26,803 in 2022). Of the 28,891, the number of L&T scientists in the database (excel) that one can download is 562, and those in the top 100,000 are 153.
Dividing 34 by 28,891 yields 0.001177 or about 0.12%, which means that I am in the top 0.12% of my subfield, on a career basis. That number was 0.14% last year and 0.16% a couple of years before. Quite honestly, I was expecting that number to go up, not down, and I realize that variation in all these numbers is within the realm of statistical noise.
What is the importance of these numbers? I honestly do not know, and I have expressed my views on citations on numerous occasions before, see HERE for various blogs. I still remember a colleague boasting his own accomplishments, inferring that since he was globally No. 20 or so on "WIDGET A analysis", he was the top influencer (globally No. 1) on "WIDGET B analysis", with "WIDGET A analysis" being a legitimate subfield in the Stanford/Elsevier database, whereas "WIDGET B analysis" was undefined in that database and was not necessarily a subset of "WIDGET A analysis". In a blog, I explained the fallacy of that reasoning.
I have stopped having a Linked-In account since Jan. 2024 (I have not regretted it), so I have missed similar statements this year. But obviously, kudos are due to all people in the database.
Irrespective of all this, I have the impression that bibliometrics is fast becoming a perversion, and that quite honestly it is way over-rated as a means to evaluate academic excellence.
Other things are more important.
