Scientists' rankings
I am on the list, expectedly!
Rankings of scientists is an old practice in the highly competitive academic world. Research or impact metrics have been around for a while, and they aim to provide self-reflections for academics and research institutions, but also to offer some ideas on quality. While there are no perfect rankings or metrics that suits every type of field and scientists, this “Stanford University Ranking” has received a lot of attention in recent years. Why? Because it improves some previous ones that focus on heavily on single metrics such as citations or h-index. It is also “fairer” since it accounts for career level and also author contribution. In some fields publishing in large teams in normal. Besides, single authored papers usually involve more efforts than co-authorship, and first authors can take most of the publication load.
In fact, this is a study by the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University and published in a scientific journal. The top 2% scientists worldwide are listed since 2021. This study considers several metrics including citations, h-index, h-m index and the authors rank (order in publications). I entered the list in 2021, and was included in the 2022 and lists. In 2021, I was the youngest scientist – based on the year of the first publication – among all the 165 ones from Qatar mentioned in this list. I am also in the list for 2023, with my global rank improving significantly – now on the ca. 120 thousand rank in comparison to my ca. 165 thousand rank in 2021 🙂 However, remember, the list includes the top 2%, that is “only” ca. 200 thousand scientists out of the 10 million people who published in scopus.
Naturally, not all scientists have the same research tasks, the same means or environments. Besides, such rankings are not exclusive indicators of impact or quality. They are rather global approximations. A scientist that publishes books in niche topic might have a huge scientific relevance, but she/he stands little change to be on such lists. For me, such rankings are fun and give some gratification as a young scientist. However, in the context of my resume and field, I should expect to be on such rankings. More important is to always think of impacts beyond metrics.