14 Leiden researchers on highly cited list
Fourteen Leiden University scientists appear on the 2018 Highly Cited Researchers list, which was announced on 28 November by Clarivate Analytics.
Most Leiden researchers on the list are found at Faculty of Science. They are astronomers Henk Hoekstra, Rychard Bouwens, Marijn Franx and Joop Schaye, physicist Carlo Beenakker, biologist Rob Verpoorte, and medicinal chemist Ad IJzerman.
Shanghai Index
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, the so-called Shanghai Ranking, ranks universities by several indicators of academic or research performance. These indicators include alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution. In 2018 Leiden University was in 74th place in this ranking.
The relevance of citations
Since Leiden University lacks recent Nobel Prize or Field Medal winners, the papers in Nature and Science and the number of highly cited researchers become prominent in the counts yielding the ranking, each for 20 percent. The latter group is defined by the Highly Cited Researchers metrics provided by Clarivate Analytics/Thomson Reuters, well-known for their Web of Science databases. According to them ‘the list recognizes world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science’.