The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds 2015

REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTIFIC MINDS 2015 “Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that’s precise, predictive, and reliable – a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional.” — Brian Greene (1963– ) Theoretical physicist and author Cover Image: A Chilean projects a laser during a moon eclipse at Mamayuta Observatory in Chile. A MEASURE OF SUCCESS It’s estimated there are about nine million researchers in the world today who produce upwards of two million reports each year. That’s an enormous volume of material that creates a dilemma when trying to identify the scientists whose work has earned distinction in the eyes of the scientific community. One measure for this is culling the authors whose work has consistently wielded outsized influence in the form of citations from fellow scientists. When peers read and cite the work they find the most useful and significant, it is a concrete, quantifiable marker of esteem. One measure of scientific eminence is to identify authors who have been prolific in the production of highly cited reports, according to the unique store of statistics maintained by Thomson Reuters. HIGHLYCITED.COM This report is an updated listing of the elite authors officially designated as Highly Cited Researchers, based on their respective output of top-cited papers in their fields. Covering an 11-year period (and presenting a special subset of “hot” researchers whose very recent work has won distinction in the form of citations), it features the scientists who have won acclaim and approval within a key population: their peers. Emmanuel Thiveaud Vice-President Head of Government Solutions & Research Analytics Thomson Reuters IP & Science Business 3 INTRODUCTION Who are some of the best and brightest scientific minds of our time? Thomson Reuters answers this question, as it has in the past, by analyzing data from its Web of Science and InCites platforms to determine which researchers have produced published works that are most cited by their peers. The some 3,000 highly cited researchers listed in this report were selected by analyzing citation data over a recent 11-year period (2003-2013) and identifying those who published the greatest number of highly cited papers. We also identified hot researchers, authors of papers published in a recent two-year period (2013-2014) that were cited immediately after publication at extraordinarily high levels. Highly cited papers rank in the top 1% and hot papers rank in the top .1% of the citation distributions of comparable papers, those matched for field and age. Both hot papers and highly cited papers are featured in the Essential Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters, presented within the InCites platform. It is precisely this type of recognition—by peers in the form of citations given—that makes highly cited or hot researcher status meaningful. The identification of these individuals is rooted in the collective, objective opinions of field experts within the scientific community. 4 For time to time certain arguments appear, sometimes voiced by scientists themselves, on the negative or corrosive effects in the research community of drawing attention to specific persons through awards or special designations such as being a highly cited or hot researcher. Such social conventions, however, reflect a reality that is indisputable: human talent is unequally distributed in research just as in the arts or athletics. In fact, Diana Hicks and J. Sylvan Katz, science policy analysts and scientometric