Yale scientists among most cited

Yale University ranks fifth among federally funded U.S. universities for the citation impact of its published research, according to a Science Watch survey.

The ranking was calculated by using publication and citation data to gauge how often during the past five years papers by Yale authors were cited by other scientists in 21 major fields of science and the social sciences. That number was then compared with a worldwide cites-per-paper average.

The four universities that ranked above Yale in the two-part survey were Harvard, which came in first, followed by Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego.

“We consider citations to be very significant,” said Chris King, editor of Science Watch, a newsletter published by the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, “because they reflect what scientists themselves deem to be important. When they cite a paper, they’re saying, ‘This work is important. It’s germane to what I’m doing.’”