Citation Records Reveal Top Australian Universities In 21 Fields

Top Three Australian Universities In 21 Fields, Ranked by Total Citations, 1990-94 Top Three Australian Universities in 21 Fields, Ranked by Citation Impact, 1990-1994 Editor's Note: Noting that Australian institutes are becoming more prominent in the world research scene, the newsletter Science Watch, published by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), recently analyzed the citation records of that country's universities for the first time. This reprint from the July/August 1996 issue of Science Watch ranks Australian institutions by the total number of citations of their papers published in 21 fields between 1990 and 1994, as well as citation impact (citations per paper) of these articles. Both are based on information from ISI's Australian University Indicators on Diskette, 1981-94. The database and citation analysis do not include papers by scientists from Australian government research labs-the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation-per se, but may include papers on which these investigators are collaborators. The Science Watch article analyzing the rankings (7[4]:1, 1996) is reprinted here with the permission of the newsletter and ISI, its publisher. For more information on the citation databases discussed in the article, contact Christopher King, editor of Science Watch, ISI, 3501 Market St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104; (800) 523-1850, Ext. 1341. Fax: (215) 387-1266. E-mail: cking@isinet.com. Having assessed research north of the border in a survey of Canadian universities last fall (Science Watch, 6[10]:1, November/December 1995), Science Watch now heads south and halfway around the world to focus on university research in Australia. As in the Canadian study, Australian universities are ranked according to two measures: impact (average citations per paper) and total citations. Both measures are based on papers published and cited in Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)-indexed journals between 1990 and 1994. The table below lists the top three finishers in each of 21 fields according to impact; the table above ranks universities according to total citations. These rankings are based on data from ISI's recently released Australian University Indicators on Diskette, 1981-94, a database containing publication and citation statistics on 26 Australian universities. Two of the institutions here are closely related and require special explanation. The Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), consisting of seven postgraduate research schools, is part of the Australian National University (ANU). In ISI's Australian Indicators database and in this survey, IAS was treated both as a unique institution and as part of ANU. All counts of ANU's papers and citations included papers from IAS, while papers from IAS were also counted separately.Given the considerable overlap in the published papers from the two institutions, it is not surprising that they appear close together in many of the rankings. In fact, ANU and IAS appear immediately adjacent to one another in seven of the 21 fields ranked by impact, and in four of the fields ranked by total citations. According to both the impact and the total-citations measures, the two institutions showed considerable clout-particularly in the physical sciences, including chemistry, geosciences, engineering, and astrophysics. Overall, ANU appears in 14 of the fields ranked by impact, and in 11 fields in the total-citations table. Not far behind ANU in terms of overall presence in the tables is the University of Melbourne. Just as ANU and IAS would seem to have a lock on most of the physical sciences, so did Melbourne dominate the life sciences. The university's strong showing in the total-citations table is not entirely surprising, since this measure tends to favor large institutions that produce many papers. However, the strong influence of life-sciences research at Melbourne was also evident in the citations-per-paper measure, in which smaller institutions can compete with larger ones on a more equal footing. Melbourne topped the impact rankings and the total-citations rankings in the fields of immunology, molecular biology, microbiology, pharmacology, neuroscience, and biology and biochemistry. A few other institutions appeared repeatedly in the two tables. The University of Sydney, for example, was among the top three in 14 fields. In the impact table, Sydney captured the top spot in ecology/environmental sciences and finished second or third in three other fields. The University of New South Wales held down seven spots in the impact rankings, including the top spot in mathematics and the runner-up positions in computer science, clinical medicine, and psychology/psychiatry. New South Wales also made eight appearances among the fields in the total-citations table. Still, other universities, while not exactly crowding the rankings, shone brightly in certain key fields. The University of Queensland, for one, recorded the highest impact in physics over the last five years; the university's citations-per-paper marks were also high enough for placement among the leaders in agricultural sciences and mathematics. And relatively small Flinders University of South Australia scored well enough in impact in the life sciences to make three impressive placements, including the top spot in medicine, second place in neuroscience, and third in pharmacology. As is customary in its studies of citation impact, Science Watch imposed thresholds of output-a minimum number of papers produced by an institution in a certain field-in its computing of the rankings. This meant that some universities that produced high impact scores with a comparatively small number of papers in a given field were omitted from the rankings. In physics, for example, Flinders University of South Australia registered a citations-per-paper mark of 3.8-good enough for first place in the impact table. Unfortunately, Flinders published just 137 papers in ISI-indexed journals of physics between 1990 and 1994, an output below the threshold of 200 papers set for this field, so was not included on the table. Similarly, in agricultural sciences, La Trobe University scored well in impact, with a list-topping 3.0 citations per paper, but fell below the threshold of 100 papers in this field. In each field, Science Watch attempted to find an appropriate threshold that was not overly exclusive yet retained a reasonable output standard. In addition to assessing research carried out during 1990 to 1994, Science Watch examined the performance of Australian universities during a longer span, from 1981 to 1994. By the measure of overall impact in all fields, IAS scored highest, with an average of 12.9 citations per paper for the 14-year period. ANU was next, with an average of 11.1. Third was the University of Melbourne (11.0 citations per paper), followed by Flinders University of South Australia (10.6), Monash University (8.4), the University of Adelaide (8.2), the University of Sydney (8.2), Griffith University (7.6), the University of Western Australia (7.4), and the University of New South Wales (7.3). Date: October 14, 1996 Field123 PhysicsAustralian National University (2,790) Institute of Advanced Studies (2,305) University of Melbourne (1,844) ChemistryAustralian National University (2,596) Institute of Advanced Studies (2,347) University of Sydney (2,227) Materials ScienceUniversity of Sydney ( 340) University of New South Wales ( 330) Australian National University (166) EngineeringAustralian National University( 895) University of New South Wales ( 855) University of Sydney ( 616) GeosciencesAustralian National University(2,873)Institute of Advanced Studies (2,587) Monash University ( 636) AstrophysicsAustralian National University(2,226) Institute of Advanced Studies (2,024) University of Sydney ( 679) Computer ScienceAustralian National University( 80) University of New South Wales ( 78) University of Melbourne ( 53) MathematicsAustralian National University( 386) University of New South Wales ( 292) Institute of Advanced Studies ( 128) Ecology/EnvironmentalAustralian National University( 484) University of Sydney ( 465) University of Western Australia (364) Agricultural SciencesUniversity of Queensland ( 324) University of Adelaide ( 287) University of Sydney ( 284) Plant & Animal SciencesAustralian National University (1,909) University of Melbourne (1,413) Institute of Advanced Studies (1,362) Clinical MedicineUniversity of Melbourne (11,424) University of Sydney (7,430) University of New South Wales (6,522) ImmunologyUniversity of Melbourne (4,490) University of Sydney (1,485) Monash University (1,179) MicrobiologyUniversity of Melbourne (2,290) University of Queensland (1,417) University of Adelaide ( 693) Biology & BiochemistryUniversity of Melbourne (11,584) Monash University (6,038) University of Sydney (5,884) Molecular Biology University of Melbourne (5,967) University of Sydney (1,928) University of Adelaide (1,472) NeuroscienceUniversity of Melbourne (3,109) University of New South Wales (2,221) University of Sydney (1,932) PharmacologyUniversity of Melbourne (1,835) Monash University (1,054) University of Sydney ( 760) Psychology/Psychiatry University of New South Wales (1,300) University of Sydney ( 737) University of Melbourne ( 730) Education Deakin University ( 99) University of Sydney ( 54) University of Western Sydney ( 50) Economics & Business Australian National University( 263) University of New South Wales ( 149) Monash University ( 119) Source: ISI's Australian University Indicators on Diskette, 1981-94 Field123 PhysicsUniversity of Queensland (3.5) University of Adelaide (3.2) Australian National University(2.8) ChemistryInstitute of Advanced Studies (4.1) Australian National University(4.0) University of Sydney (3.7) Materials ScienceAustralian National University(2.7) University of Sydney (2.4) University of Western Australia(2.0) EngineeringInstitute of Advanced Studies (2.2) Australian National University(2.0) University of Newcastle (1.9) GeosciencesInstitute of Advanced Studies (5.7) Australian National University(5.0) University of Melbourne (4.0) AstrophysicsInstitute of Advanced Studies (8.5) Australian National University(8.3) University New South Wales (3.7) Computer ScienceInstitute of Advanced Studies (1.6) University of New South Wales (1.5) Australian National University(1.4) MathematicsUniversity of New South Wales (1.7) Australian National University(1.5) University of Queensland (1.3) Ecology/EnvironmentalUniversity of Sydney (3.7) Australian National University (2.7) University of New England (2.6) Agricultural SciencesUniversity of Adelaide (2.2) University of Queensland (1.8) University of Melbourne (1.7) Plant & Animal SciencesInstitute of Advanced Studies (5.0) Australian National University (3.8) University of Tasmania (3.0) Clinical MedicineFlinders University of South Australia (3.9) University of New South Wales (3.6) University of Melbourne (3.5) ImmunologyUniversity of Melbourne (6.6) University of Adelaide (6.6) University of New South Wales (6.0) MicrobiologyUniversity of Melbourne (5.7) Australian National University (4.7) University of Adelaide (4.6) Biology & BiochemistryUniversity of Melbourne (7.0) Institute of Advanced Studies (5.6) Monash University (5.4) Molecular Biology University of Melbourne (10.2) Institute of Advanced Studies (8.1) Australian National University(7.7) NeuroscienceUniversity of Melbourne (6.4) Flinders University of South Australia (6.3) University of New South Wales (5.2) PharmacologyUniversity of Melbourne (4.4) University of Western Australia (4.4) Flinders University of South Australia (4.3) Psychology/Psychiatry Macquarie University (3.3) University of New South Wales (3.1) Australian National University (2.6) Education Deakin University (2.2) University of Western Sydney (2.1) University of Sydney (1.5) Economics & Business Australian National University(1.4) Institute of Advanced Studies (1.2) Monash University (1.0) Source: ISI's Australian University Indicators on Diskette, 1981-94

Citation Records Reveal Top Australian Universities In 21 Fields

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