With Nobel announcement time in full swing, Thomson Reuters gets a chance to see how its picks, based on citations, hold up to the somewhat fickle reality of Nobel committees, though none in the sciences are as goofy as the Peace prize left-field awards.
Each year, Thomson Reuters uses data from its research solution, Web of KnowledgeSM, to quantitatively determine the most influential researchers in the Nobel categories of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. Based on citations to their works, the company names these high-impact researchers as Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates and predicts them to be Nobel Prize winners, either this year or in the near future.
Thomson Reuters is the only organization to use quantitative data to make annual predictions of Nobel Prize winners. Since 2002, 19 Citation Laureates have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.
“We choose our Citation Laureates by assessing citation counts and the number of high-impact papers while identifying discoveries or themes that may be considered worthy of recognition by the Nobel Committee," said David Pendlebury, Citation Analyst, Research Services, Thomson Reuters. "A strong correlation exists between citations in literature and peer esteem. Professional awards, like the Nobel Prize, are a reflection of this peer esteem."
The Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of researchers in their fields, based on citations of their published papers over the last two decades.
This year, 15 of the 21 Citation Laureates hail from American universities; researchers from France, Japan, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom also appear among the 2010 picks.