Six Birzeit University academics and researchers among top 2% of world’s scientists with highest citation impact

Six Birzeit University academics and researchers are among the top 2% of the world’s most widely cited scientists in their fields and subfields as measured by the 2022 update of the Stanford University and Elsevier analysis lists, based on Scopus bibliometric information.

The lists examined the world’s top-cited scientists based on the number of research publications, citations and other measures of research productivity throughout their research career. It identifies the top 2% of researchers in specific disciplines using two timeframes: (i) span of career and (ii) the most recent complete year of data (2021, in this case).

The career-long list includes two academics and researchers from Birzeit University out of 11 Palestinian academics and researchers: Dr. Talal Shahwan of the Faculty of Science and Dr. Afif Akel of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology.

The second list, which presents the most impactful researchers in the 2021 calendar year, includes six academics and researchers from Birzeit University out of 11 Palestinian academics and researchers: Dr. Majdi Mafarja and Dr. Afif Akel of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology; Dr. Talal Shahwan of the Faculty of Science; and Niveen Abu Rmeileh, Rasha Khatib and Abdullatif Husseini of the Institute of Community and Public Health.

The academics and researchers who attained high positions in the lists have been recognized both for the quantity of their publications and impact of their scholarly work and its influence on knowledge production in their fields of study.

The lists are produced by a team of researchers at Stanford University and Elsevier publishing houses, which were originally published in 2019 with the aim of producing a consistent citation metric based on multiple factors, such as the total number of citations, the Hirsch or h-index; the Schreiber hm-index, and the number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author.

Based on the Scopus database, the team used the composite indicator to rank the 100,000 most cited global scientists worldwide, and are classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields.

To read more about the global rankings and its methodology, follow this link.