A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field
Open accessAbstract
Citation metrics are widely used and misused. We have created a publicly available database of 100,000 top scientists that provides standardized information on citations, h-index, coauthorship-adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions, and a composite indicator. Separate data are shown for career-long and single-year impact. Metrics with and without self-citations and ratio of citations to citing papers are given. Scientists are classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields. Field- and subfield-specific percentiles are also provided for all scientists who have published at least five papers. Career-long data are updated to end of 2017 and to end of 2018 for comparison.
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Author disambiguation systems in both DBs were shown to be more accurate, but split identities and other discrepancies still occur.
“although author disambiguation systems in both DBs were shown to be more accurate [121], split identities and other discrepancies still occur.”
From Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World (2021) · cites this paper as [121]
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Cites
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Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
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Self-citationCelebrating 20 Years of Open Access and Innovation at JMIR Publications
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A Systems Analysis Critique of Sport-Science Research
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InfluentialGlobal scientific production in the pre-Covid-19 Era: An analysis of 53 countries for 22 years
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Quantitative analysis of artificial intelligence on liver cancer: A bibliometric analysis
Xiong, M., Xu, Y., Zhao, Y., He, S., Zhu, Q., Wu, Y., Hu, X., & Liu, L. (2023) · Frontiers in Oncology · doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.990306 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
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“The citation frequency of the USA accounted for 43.3% of the total citations (14,367 citations and 13,256 without self-cited citations) and also obtained the highest paper H-index [54], which was almost twice that of China (7,535 citations and 6,548 without self-cited citations; H-index 40).”
InfluentialAbramo, G., D’Angelo, C. A., & Costa, F. D. (2020) · Journal of Informetrics · doi:10.1016/j.joi.2020.101072 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Sandnes, F. E. (2021) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3411763.3451794 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“To demonstrate the viability of the proposed linking procedure, a list of 105,026 researchers worldwide based on Scopus data from a study by Ioannidis et al. [19], later adopted by [43], was used.”
MethodDoes the geographic proximity effect on knowledge spillovers vary across research fields?
Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C. A., & Costa, F. D. (2020) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03411-x · Cited by 18 · see citing works
The gender citation gap: Why and how it matters
Wu, C. (2023) · Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie · doi:10.1111/cars.12428 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Petitions in scientific argumentation: Dissecting the request to retire statistical significance
Hardwicke, T. E., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2019) · European Journal of Clinical Investigation · doi:10.1111/eci.13162 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Self-citationJones, A. W. (2021) · International Journal of Legal Medicine · doi:10.1007/s00414-020-02491-x · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Gender Diversity and Beyond in Corporate Finance: Where Do We Stand?
Falconieri, S., & Akter, M. (2023) · Review of Corporate Finance · doi:10.1561/114.00000034 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Grit and L2 grit research in SLA (2013–2025)
González, C. F., & Ledo, M. (2025) · Studies in Second Language Acquisition · doi:10.1017/s0272263125100909 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“(cid:129) On the other hand, the average self-citation rate, a more specific bibliometric index based on the distinction between non-self-and self-citations (Costas et al., 2010; Ioannidis et al., 2019; Szomszor et al., 2020), was found to be moderate for both the cited (6.41”
InfluentialUncertainty, insightful ignorance, and curiosity: Improving future food science research
Knorr, D., & Augustin, M. A. (2021) · Trends in Food Science & Technology · doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2021.10.011 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Defining the early career researcher: A study of publication‐based definitions
Frandsen, T. F., & Nicolaisen, J. (2024) · Learned Publishing · doi:10.1002/leap.1621 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
“Yet, recall and precision for the pro fi les have been found to be relatively high, with 98% precision and 93.5% recall (Ioannidis et al., 2019).”
InfluentialNLP Scholar: An Interactive Visual Explorer for Natural Language Processing Literature
Mohammad, S. M. (2020) · Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: System Demonstrations (ACL Demo) · doi:10.18653/v1/2020.acl-demos.27 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Furthermore, the citation process can be abused, for example, by egregious self-citations (Ioannidis et al., 2019).”
BackgroundSame same but different: self-citations identified through Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection
Li, H., & Liu, W. (2020) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03573-8 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Gender issues in fundamental physics: A bibliometric analysis
Струмиа, А. (2021) · Quantitative Science Studies · doi:10.1162/qss_a_00114 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Ranking the Ranker: How to Evaluate Institutions, Researchers, Journals, and Conferences?
van der Aalst, W. M. P., Hinz, O. F., & Weinhardt, C. (2023) · Business & Information Systems Engineering · doi:10.1007/s12599-023-00836-5 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“For example, the databases and rankings by Clarivate have a strong bias toward specific disciplines (e.g., physics) and tend to downplay the impact and volume of BISE research (Ioannidis et al. 2019).”
BackgroundFrom Integrity to Inflation: Ethical and Unethical Citation Practices in Academic Publishing
Plevris, V. (2025) · Journal of Academic Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10805-025-09631-1 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“Specifically, it examines the percentage of self-citations among the world’s top scientists, as reported in the works of Ioannidis et al. (Ioannidis, 2023, 2024; Ioannidis et al., 2019, 2020 ).”
Rodríguez, V., Flores-Sanchez, M., Zambrano, C. H., Rincón, L., Paz, J. L., & Torres, F. J. (2022) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09329 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
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“values, or ranking positions, of authors from different disciplines cannot be directly compared.(3,4,7) Thus, it is not possible to directly compare cns values of those in different sub-fields.”
BackgroundExtinction, climate change and the ecology of Homo sapiens
Tilman, D. G. (2022) · Journal of Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13847 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“Only about 1 of every 1,000 people on earth does scholarly research of any type (Ioannidis et al., 2019), and less than 1% of them work on ecological or environmental issues.”
BackgroundFrietsch, R., Gruber, S., & Bornmann, L. (2025) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-024-05158-1 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“Rodríguez-Navarroa and Brito (2021) compared HCRs data on the national level based on the definition by Clarivate and Ioannidis and co-authors (Ioannidis et al., 2019, 2020).”
InfluentialBudimir, G., Rahimeh, S., Tamimi, S., & Južnič, P. (2021) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-021-03862-w · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Self-Citations and scientific evaluation: Leadership, influence, and performance
Simões, N., & Crespo, N. (2019) · Journal of Informetrics · doi:10.1016/j.joi.2019.100990 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
The State of NLP Literature: A Diachronic Analysis of the ACL AnthologyPreprint
Mohammad, S. M. (2019) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1911.03562 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“…Siddharthan, and Tidhar 2006; Pham and Hoffmann 2003; Nanba, Kando, and Okumura 2011; Mohammad et al. 2009; Zhu et al. 2015), and on measuring scholarly impact (Ravenscroft et al. 2017; Priem and Hemminger 2010; Bulaitis 2017; Bos and Nitza 2019; Ioannidis et al. 2019; Yogatama et al. 2011).”
BackgroundInformal Digital Learning of English
Lee, J. S. (2026) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781009641647 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
The fading of status bias during the open peer review process
Sun, Z., Pang, K. L., & Li, Y. (2024) · Journal of Informetrics · doi:10.1016/j.joi.2024.101528 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
The Australian nursing and midwifery academic workforce: A cross-sectional study
East, L., Halcomb, E., Terry, D. R., Jackson, D., & Hutchinson, M. (2024) · Nurse Education in Practice · doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2024.104156 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Features and signals in precocious citation impact: A meta-research study
Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0328531 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citationPurposeful Evaluation of Scholarship in the Open Science Era
Pagliaro, M. (2021) · Challenges · doi:10.3390/challe12010006 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“The team, for example, successfully applied the method to produce a publicly available database of 100,000 “top” scientists [44].”
MethodHow do Price medalists’ scholarly impact change before and after their awards?
Hou, J., Zheng, B., Zhang, Y., & Chen, C. (2021) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-021-03979-y · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Hodge, D. R., & Turner, P. R. (2022) · Research on Social Work Practice · doi:10.1177/10497315221136623 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Additional information about the methods used to develop the composite measure and databases is available elsewhere (Ioannidis et al., 2016, 2019, 2020).”
BackgroundMethodAdams, R. B., & Xu, J. (2023) · Review of Corporate Finance · doi:10.1561/114.00000035 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Sun, X., Zhu, J., Li, R., Peng, Y. F., & Gong, L. (2025) · Frontiers in Neurology · doi:10.3389/fneur.2024.1510522 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Heading Towards Sub-Discipline Rankings for Higher Education Institutions
Qureshi, M. S., Daud, A. Y., Hayat, M. K., Song, M., & Park, Y. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems · doi:10.1109/tcss.2022.3206396 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“The work presented in [13] and [14] is relevant to our research as it employs the Scopus researchers’ profiles belonging to various scientific disciplines, including information technology.”
BackgroundMethodExcellence in editorials: fulfilling their critical role in the medical literature
Leslie, K., & Hemmings, H. C. (2020) · British Journal of Anaesthesia · doi:10.1016/j.bja.2020.06.061 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Xiao, Y., Yu, W., Zheng, J., Cheng, L., Ding, X., Qiao, L., Wu, X., & Ma, J. (2023) · Orthopaedic Surgery · doi:10.1111/os.13831 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“The H-index, a hybrid index proposed by Hirsch, could be used to evaluate academic achievements.(13) CiteSpace is a popular information visualization tool in the field of knowledge graphs.”
MethodIntegrating the humanities and the social sciences: six approaches and case studies
Case, B. W., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2024) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-024-02684-4 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Bibliometric comparison of Nobel Prize laureates: a few suggestions
Hassan, W., & PAAS, F. G. W. C. (2024) · Naunyn-Schmiedeberg s Archives of Pharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00210-024-03648-w · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Co-Word Analysis of First-Authored Publications Written by Top Cited Scholars of Social Work
Song, Y., Sun, X., & Duan, W. (2023) · Research on Social Work Practice · doi:10.1177/10497315221148661 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“To compile this list, the most-cited scientists in each fi eld were systematically ranked (Ioannidis et al., 2019).”
Recent trends in the use of social media in parasitology and the application of alternative metrics
Ellis, J., Ellis, B., Tyler, K. M., & Reichel, M. P. (2021) · Current Research in Parasitology and Vector-Borne Diseases · doi:10.1016/j.crpvbd.2021.100013 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“…authors being simply highly productive and advancing knowledge boundaries (Mishra et al., 2018), self-citation varies considerably amongst authors (Ioannidis et al., 2019) and is now being viewed negatively because of the potential for citation manipulation and misrepresentation of research…”
BackgroundBibliometric insights in fournier's gangrene: Research landscapes, turning points, and global trends
Zhang, J., Xiao, C.-F., Wang, C., & Yao, Y.-B. (2023) · Frontiers in Surgery · doi:10.3389/fsurg.2023.1057486 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“The H-index is a mixed quantitative index that can be used to evaluate the quantity and level of academic output (22).”
Wang, J., Su, G., Wan, C., Huang, X., & Sun, L. (2020) · Symmetry · doi:10.3390/sym12060903 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ioannidis, J. P. A., Baas, J., Klavans, R., & Boyack, K. W.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Elsevier BV (Netherlands) (NL)
- SciTech Strategies (United States) (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ioannidis, John P. A.
- Baas, Jeroen
- Klavans, Richard
- Boyack, Kevin W.
- Venue
- PLOS Biology
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2019-08-12
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e3000384
- ISSN
- 1544-9173 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-7885
- PMC
- PMC6699798
- OpenAlex
- W2968900048
- Cited by
- 356
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 46 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 14
- FWCI
- 26.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- new_version (2019-08-19)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Laura and John Arnold Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Keywords
- citation metrics, h-index, author's position, self-citation, scientific field, subfields, researcher impact, composite index
- MeSH terms
- Data Management, Authorship, Humans, Publications, Publishing, Reference Standards, Research Personnel, Bibliometrics, Databases, Factual, Journal Impact Factor, Data Curation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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