Lone Geniuses or One among Many? An Explorative Study of Contemporary Highly Cited Researchers
Article Category: Research Paper
Online veröffentlicht: 08. März 2021
Seitenbereich: 41 - 66
Eingereicht: 11. Dez. 2020
Akzeptiert: 19. Feb. 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2021-0019
Schlüsselwörter
© 2021 Dag W. Aksnes et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Purpose
The ranking lists of highly cited researchers receive much public attention. In common interpretations, highly cited researchers are perceived to have made extraordinary contributions to science. Thus, the metrics of highly cited researchers are often linked to notions of breakthroughs, scientific excellence, and lone geniuses.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, we analyze a sample of individuals who appear on
Findings
The study reveals that the highly cited articles of the selected individuals generally have a very large number of authors. Thus, these papers seldom represent individual contributions but rather are the result of large collective research efforts conducted in research consortia. This challenges the common perception of highly cited researchers as individual geniuses who can be singled out for their extraordinary contributions. Moreover, the study indicates that a few of the individuals have not even contributed to highly cited original research but rather to reviews or clinical guidelines. Finally, the large number of authors of the papers implies that the ranking list is very sensitive to the specific method used for allocating papers and citations to individuals. In the “whole count” methodology applied by
Research limitations
The study is based on a limited part of the total population of highly cited researchers.
Practical implications
It is concluded that “excellence” understood as highly cited encompasses very different types of research and researchers of which many do not fit with dominant preconceptions.
Originality/value
The study develops further knowledge on highly cited researchers, addressing questions such as who becomes highly cited and the type of research that benefits by defining excellence in terms of citation scores and specific counting methods.