Jian Wang recipient inaugural Eugene Garfield Award
The first Eugene Garfield Award for Innovation In Citation Analysis has been granted to Jian Wang, Assistant Professor in the Science Based Business Program at Leiden University.
This was announced on 15 September at a memorial symposium for Eugene Garfield, to commemorate and celebrate his contributions to the field of information retrieval and scientometrics. The award amount is $25,000, and the winner also receives access to Web of Science data.
Innovative approaches in citation analysis
The Garfield award was created to recognize early-career scientists working on innovative approaches in citation analysis, one of the key interests of Eugene Garfield and an important component of his impact on information retrieval, research assessment and the study of the science of science.
The intersection of information science, economics and public policy
Jian Wang's research applies scientometric and econometric methods to characterize novel research using citation data and to use references to scientific literature from within patents to explore the translation of science into innovation. His work lies at the intersection of information science, economics and public policy and his findings contribute to the important discussion of how bibliometric indicators can be enhanced to better identify and assess novel research and translational science. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2013.
Real-world scientific problems
'Among the many excellent submissions, Jian's application stood out because it was grounded equally in the methodology of citation analysis and the application of these approaches to further scientific policy and governance,' said David Pendlebury, who worked with Eugene Garfield for many years and served on the application review panel. 'Gene was interested in applying citation analysis methods to real-world scientific problems, and this award is meant to recognize that.'
Building a data infrastructure
Reacting to the news, Jian Wang said, 'I will make good use of the award funding and access to Web of Science data to build a data infrastructure and research team to pursue my research, such as topic modeling for identifying novel research and mapping patent in-text references to the scientific literature. This recognition comes at an important time in my career as I'm establishing my independent research program.'