Exeter 6th in UK for most cited researchers says new global ranking

Three of the academics from Mathematics are listed within the Geosciences area, Mat Collins, Peter Cox and Pierre Friedlingstein, a number which places Exeter joint first in the UK in this subject area. In addition, Kevin Gaston of the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the Penryn Campus and Stephen Sitch both feature in the Environment/Ecology category, placing Exeter joint second in the UK.

Andrew Hattersley, Tim Frayling and Michael Weedon from the University of Exeter Medical School who are involved in research to combat some of the most challenging healthcare issues such as diabetes and obesity, were named in the Molecular Biology and Genetics category.

Prof Nicholas Talbot, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer said: “To be placed so highly as an institution in this newly published study is an outstanding achievement for Exeter. My congratulations go to all the academics whose hard work and excellent research has generated this well-deserved recognition. This also builds on a very significant rise in citations across the whole University, which demonstrates the reach and quality of research being carried out across the institution.”

This survey is an update to the last one undertaken in 2004, however the methodology used has been adapted to focus on more contemporary research achievement. Therefore only articles and reviews in science and social sciences journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection during the 11-year period 2002-2012 were surveyed. Secondly, rather than using total citations as a measure of influence or ‘impact,’ only Highly Cited Papers were considered. The net effect of the modified selection method removes the citation disadvantage of recently published papers relative to older ones, since papers are weighed against others in the same annual cohort.