Top 100 Countries in the Elsevier-Stanford University List of World's 2% Most-cited Scientists: 2017-2020 Data: Editorial

Editorial

Abstract

Research publications and their citation impact have been a topic of extensive studies in the recent past. In the current highly competitive environment, universities are struggling to maintain and enhance their research productivity and citations. This article presents the summary of a secondary analysis of the Elsevier-Stanford University list of the global 2% most-cited scientists released so far. The data regarding the career-long category were sorted according to the number of authors, affiliated university, and the country. Subsequently, the countries were ranked based on the total number of authors in each year from 2017 to 2020, and the top 100 countries were further analyzed to see their annual progress. The analysis shows that countries with clear, focused, and strategic approaches towards promoting collaborative research and open access to research data and publications could succeed in producing highly cited scientists.