The ink on ‘Measuring up‘ was barely dry before Michael Muller sent an indignant email. Since when did he no longer belong on the list? He was quickly followed by Hans Tramper, who said that ‘as an old hand he wasn’t that concerned’. And hadn’t we left out Tjakko Abee, suggested someone else. Yes, we had. Annoying, but not entirely unexpected. Fortunately, the complaints stopped there. In the new list shown below, these errors have been corrected. Unavoidably, at the expense of three others. Louise Vet, Jacques Vervoort and Martien Groenen, please accept our apologies. Expert judgement Get it right first time. Wasn’t that possible? In principle yes, but it is no easy matter to compile a list like this. Wageningen UR doesn’t keep its own records of scores like these. What’s more, a scientist who wants to know her own h-rating, has to investigate it herself. In fact, there is only one good way to compile the Top-20: expert judgement. In other words, to sound out a broad selection of people who could or should be in the know. So that is what has been done. But it’s a fallible method. Among those thousands of scientists, it is easy to overlook someone. Which means that even the amended and appended list is falsifiable. Improbable Besides, in no way does an h-score tell the whole story. Total output, the total number of citations, the average per article and the number of citations for the most frequently cited article provide a much more complete picture of a researcher’s scientific worth. Such statistics in the table below reveal striking differences. For example, Peter Holman achieves an h=48 with just 120 articles. This is reflected in the improbable average of more than 100 citations per article. Although, obviously, 2288 (!) citations for a top article bumps up the score rather nicely. WoS The total number of citations also shows great variation, with Daan Kromhout the real star with over 25,000 citations. Willem de Vos isn’t far behind, but he’s needed 180 more articles to get to his position. Incidentally, the data come from Web of Science, currently the most used and most complete source in the h-field. Upon request, WoS will publish each scientist’s citation score per year in graph form. Staff of Wageningen UR have access to WoS via the library website (www.library.wur.nl).
h-index
citations total
citations ave. per article
citations top article
articles total
Willem de Vos, microbiology
77
22677
36
427
626
Daan Kromhout, epidemiology
76
25567
57
2288
445
Maarten Koornneef, genetics
65
13301
63
553
210
Willem van Riemsdijk, soil chemistry
57
10482
43
488
242
Edith Feskens, nutrition
56
14781
48
2288
309
Marcel Dicke, entomology
56
10396
39
790
268
Willem Norde, physical chemistry
53
9984
42
710
233
Frans Kok, nutrition
52
10414
33
480
326
Peter Hollman, food chemistry
48
12162
101
2288
120
Ton Bisseling, molecular biology
48
7266
42
258
173
Martien Cohen Stuart, physical chemistry
48
8676
25
257
353
Frank Berendse, nature management
47
6013
42
641
150
Michael Muller, nutrigenomics
46
7093
47
573
154
Just Vlak, virology
46
7103
24
233
291
Tjakko Abee, food microbiology
45
5734
30
155
192
Fons Stams, microbiology
46
7202
25
206
279
Hans Tramper, bioprocess technology
45
7491
20
189
369
Piere de Wit, phytopathology
44
5944
39
237
159
Marten Scheffer, aquatic ecology
43
7548
52
1224
146
Michiel Kleerebezem, microbiology
43
5469
34
474
163