Thomson Reuters Names Hottest Scientific Researchers and Papers of the Year

Citation Analysis Puts Broad Institute's Eric S. Lander and McMaster University's Salim Yusuf on Top in 2011

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Apr 11, 2012, 05:00 ET

PHILADELPHIA and LONDON, April 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters today announced The Hottest Research of 2011, a ranking of the most influential scientific researchers and research papers of the year by Science Watch^®, its open Web resource for science metrics and analysis. Tracking researchers whose recent published papers recorded notably higher levels of citations during 2011, along with the most highly cited individual papers of the year, the annual report spotlights emerging trends in science and the innovators behind them.

This year's group of 15 Hottest Researchers each contributed to at least 10 Hot Papers, covering key areas such as genetics, cardiology, epidemiology and cancer research. Eric S. Lander of The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard topped the list of most influential researchers for the second year straight, recording 14 Hot Papers in 2011. This was Lander's eighth year on the list. He was followed by Salim Yusuf of McMaster University and Michael R. Stratton of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, both of whom recorded 13 Hot Papers in 2011. The most highly cited individual paper published in 2011, "Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations: Cosmological Interpretations," by E. Komatsu, of The University of Texas at Austin, et al. received a total of 564 citations during the year.

Following were among some of the key findings in the annual Hottest Research report:

Genetics is Hottest Field of Study: Genetics was the primary field of study among seven of the 15 Hottest Researchers of 2011, including a landmark paper, "A Map of Human Genome Variation from Population-Scale Sequencing," to which Lander and three of the other featured researchers contributed. This publication currently ranks among biology's most-cited papers.
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Produces Most Hot Researchers: Among the 15 Hottest Researchers of 2011, four hail from the UK's charitably funded genomic research center, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and include Michael R. Stratton, P. Andrew Futreal, Peter J. Campbell and Panos Deloukas.
The Journal Nature Published Greatest Number of Highly Cited Papers in 2011: Among the 38 individual research papers receiving the highest number of citations in 2011, 10 were published in the journal Nature, the highest number of the year's hottest reports among all journals tracked in the report.

"Our annual analysis of the hottest researchers provides valuable insight into scientific and scholarly research trends, showing the people and fields eliciting the greatest attention," said Keith MacGregor, executive vice president of Thomson Reuters. "Through the use of our research solutions and internal experts, we're able to provide trend data and forecast the state of scientific and academic research."

The year's Hottest Researchers were identified using citations that occurred during calendar year 2011 for papers published between 2009 and 2011. The list of Hottest Papers tracks total citations to non-review papers during calendar year 2011. To compile both lists, Science Watch draws on data and commentary from Thomson Reuters bibliometric experts and Essential Science Indicators(SM), a unique compilation of science performance statistics and science trends data based on journal article publication counts and citation data from Web of Knowledge(SM).

View the full Hottest Research paper here: http://sciencewatch.com/newsletter/2012/201203/hottest_research_2012/.

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SOURCE Thomson Reuters