Top institutions in materials science

Data provided by Thomson Reuters from its Essential Science Indicators database, January 1999-October 2009

March 11, 2010

 Institution Papers CitationsCitations per paper
1 Rice University381 11,949 31.36
2 Harvard University596 16,467 .63
3 University of California, Santa Barbara964 25,376 26.32
4 University of Washington822 21,348 25.97
5 IBM Corporation573 13,822 24.12
6 University of California, Berkeley1,354 29,963 22.13
7 University of Southern California552 11,548 20.92
8 Massachusetts Institute of Technology1,654 34,017 20.57
9 University of Groningen524 10,547 20.13
10 Princeton University514 10,085 19.62
11 Stanford University728 13,853 19.03
12 University of Minnesota662 11,786 17.80
13 Max Planck Society3,506 54,175 15.45
14 University of California, Los Angeles749 11,003 14.69
15 Georgia Institute of Technology1,581 21,609 13.67
16 Sandia National Lab948 12,929 13.64
17 University of Michigan1,312 17,454 13.30
18 University of Cambridge2,066 ,460 13.29
19 Northwestern University1,418 18,598 13.12
20 Pierre and Marie Curie University (University of Paris 6)1,071 13,721 12.81
The data above were extracted from the Essential Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters. This database, currently covering the period 1 January 1999 to 31 October 2009, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Reuters. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and the journal-to-category field-definition scheme used by Thomson Reuters. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated. Naturally, institutions publishing larger numbers of papers have a greater likelihood of collecting more citations than those publishing fewer papers.

This ranking is by citations per paper (impact) among those institutions that have collected 10,000 or more citations. This two-pronged analysis seeks to reveal the “heavy-hitters”; in doing so, it turns up some smaller producers with outsized influence.

For papers with multiple institutional addresses, each institution receives full, not fractional, credit. Essential Science Indicators lists institutions ranked in the top 1 per cent for a field over a given period, based on total citations. For the current version, 631 institutions are listed in the field of materials science, meaning that a total of 63,100 institutions were surveyed to obtain the results. Of the 631, 71 institutions collected 10,000 or more citations.

US institutions dominate the ranking, taking 15 of the 20 spots. IBM Corporation is here considered as a global institution. The Netherlands, Germany, the UK and France, in that order, complete the list, with one institution from each country.

This ranking may be compared with a similar one of two years ago. New to the top 20 are Rice University, the University of Groningen, Princeton University, Stanford University, the University of California, Los Angeles and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dropping out of the list are the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Toronto, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the University of Illinois.

For more information, see: http://scientific.thomson.com/products/esi

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