Rice makes an impact with research

Rice
makes an impact with research
…………………………………………………………………

Rice University
ranks in the top 1 percent of all institutions worldwide
in scientific research impact and influence in 12 of 22
fields examined, according to rankings carried out by the
Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI) Essential
Science Indicators.

The Essential
Science Indicators is based on citation references by scientists
published within scholarly journal articles. Essential Science
Indicators compiles and ranks citations to form the basis
for science performance statistics and trends data.

In the field
of materials science, Rice ranks fifth out of the 427 top
institutions on a citations-per-paper basis. In the field
of physics Rice ranks 31st out of 496, and in chemistry
Rice ranks 67th out of 640 on a citations-per-paper basis.

For each of
the 22 fields, every institution listed in the Essential
Science Indicators database is in the top 1 percent of all
institutions worldwide in citation references. Institutions
include colleges, universities, government labs and centers
and private institutions and corporations.

“The ISI
survey results confirm Rice’s stature as an important
research university,” says Jordan Konisky, vice provost
for research and graduate studies. “The significance
of this particular survey is that it clearly demonstrates
that our faculty, students, postdocs and research staff
are engaged in leading-edge research that impacts the work
of scholars throughout the U.S. and abroad.”

The criterion
used in Essential Science Indicators includes citations
for papers on which a Rice employee is listed as an author,
not only the lead author.

Within the top
1 percent of institutions with the most citations in each
field, institutions are ranked numerically, both by total
citations as well as on a per-paper basis. Ranking by citations
per paper normalizes the ranking for the size of the institutions.
Just looking at total number of citations would skew the
rankings in favor of larger research institutions that have
a greater total output. For instance, in the field of physics,
the No. 1 ranked institution based on total citations is
AT&T. AT&T had a total of 4,921 papers in the field
of physics, compared to Rice’s 802 papers in the same
field. In most instances, the greater number of papers corresponds
to greater total citations.

For more information
about ISI, visit <www.isinet.com>.