Based Based on citations per paper among institutions with 50,000 or more citations. Data from Thomson Reuters's Essential Science Indicators^SM, January 1997 to December 2007.

The data above were extracted from Thomson Reuters's Essential Science Indicators^SM database. This database, currently covering the period January 1997 to December 2007, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Scientific. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and Thomson Scientific’s journal-to-category field definition scheme. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated. Naturally, institutions publishing large numbers of papers have a greater likelihood of collecting more citations than scientists publishing fewer papers. This ranking is by citations per paper (impact), among those institutions that have collected 50,000 or more citations. This two-pronged analysis seeks to reveal the “heavy hitters,” and in doing so turns up smaller producers with outsized influence.

For papers with multiple institutional addresses, each institution receives full, not fractional, citation credit. Essential Science Indicators lists institutions ranked in the top 1% for a field over a given period, based on total citations. For the current version, 373 institutions are listed in the field of molecular biology and genetics, meaning that a total of 37,300 institutions were reviewed to obtain these results. Of the 373, 56 institutions collected 50,000 or more citations. Cancer Research UK supports research at many institutions throughout the United Kingdom, and is similar in its organization to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the United States.

Visit Essential Science Indicators from Thomson Reuters.

This item also appeared in the Times Higher Education magazine, reprinted with their permission.