Who are the most influential scientists? Here is the ranking

Pubblicato il 27/06/2014Read time: 2 mins

The multinational media and information firm Thomson Reuters carried out an analysis of scientific production in the last eleven years, in order to identify the world’s most influential scientific minds. This work was based on data from the Web of Science platform, produced and maintained by Thomson Reuters’ experts, which gathers citation indexes from scientific literature – journals, conference proceedings, abstract, etcetera – grouped based on the related discipline.

Analyzing these databases allowed to identify those researchers whose papers were the most cited for each of the 21 scientific broad fields. They are 3200, with a strong preponderance of Americans, except for some fields such as environment/ecology or plant and animal sciences. There are 55 Italians included in the list and only 5 of them are women.

Within this collection of most highly cited researchers is a small subset of individuals who have published the greatest number of the so-called hot papers, which are the papers with higher impact in a specific field, during 2012-2013. Such a list is headed by Stacey B. Gabriel, who signed 23 hot papers and works, as the majority of the members of this list, at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. All the scientists in this list work for US institutions, the only exceptions being two persons working in the UK and two working in China. The roster featured an outstanding concentration of biomedicine researchers (12 out of 17), with physical sciences gaining the second place.

Autori:

di Michele Bellone

Sezioni:

Press review

Indice:

Research evaluation

Scientific research policy

Research

prossimo articolo

My Portrait of Anthony Fauci

di Guido Poli

Pubblicato il 05/08/2026

Anthony Fauci, at 85, has been called to testify before the Senate committee investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, in what feels like a settling of scores by the very party that, at the time, was recommending chloroquine as a defence. The eminent physician is once again at the centre of controversy, not least for choosing to invoke the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions. Guido Poli, immunologist at the San Raffaele Hospital and president of Patto Trasversale per la Scienza, who worked with him for many years, recalls in this article Tony Fauci's battles in the history of American and international public health, from AIDS to the pandemic. The image is taken from the footage (public domain) of A. Fauci's hearing on 29 July 2026 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Global Health

In recent days, Anthony (“Tony”) Fauci has once again become a prominent figure in the international media, and to some extent in Italy as well. As the physician-scientist who has played one of the leading roles in U.S. public health over the past several decades, he became known throughout the world during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having had the privilege and good fortune to work with him from 1986 to 1993, I would like to offer my personal account of the scientist and the man.