“Elated to see so many of Karnataka’s excellent scientists in the world’s top 2%,” deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan, who holds the portfolio of IT/BT and science & technology tweeted. The journal PLOS Biology has published the list of top global scientists.
“It is my hope that our focus on academic excellence through NEP’s implementation ensures that this list expands in the years ahead, with more scientists from state-funded institutions in it,” Narayan added.
According to published reports, Karnataka figures on the list with 124 of its scientists, of whom a lion’s share of 93 have had association with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), many of whom still serve there. Seven are from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, five from the National Centre of Biological Sciences, four each from Bengaluru University and National Aerospace Laboratories, two each at the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences, the Institute of Wood Sciences and Technology, and Manipal Academic of Higher Sciences and the University of Mysore.
Twenty two faculty members and researchers of the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IIT-G) and seven faculty members of Tezpur University — a central university — are among Indian scientists featured in the list.
The list, according to a Tezpur University press release, features more than 100,000 top scientists of the world and the list is created on the basis of standardised citation indicators such as information on citations (a quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly work), h-index (a metric for evaluating the cumulative impact of an author’s scholarly output and performance; measures quantity with quality by comparing publications to citations), co-authorship and a composite indicator as stated in their website.
All scientists were classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields. For analyses of the citations and the composite indicators, the press release said, Scopus data was used. Scopus is a multidisciplinary database with citations and abstracts from peer-reviewed journal literature, trade journals, books, patent records, and conference publications.
The list also features faculty members from Cotton University, Gauhati University, Assam University and IIT Guwahati.