2012 thomson reuters australia citation & innovation awards

CITATION & INNOVATION AWARD
WINNERS 2012
Methodology - Citation Awards 2012
This exploration of Australian research began with an identification of fields which were strengths for the
country, by a combination of three criteria: first, how many papers Australian researchers published; second,
how great a proportion of the field globally Australian research represented; and third, the level of impact,
measured in citations, relative to global performance in the field.
The next step was to consider individuals who contribute to those fields. All Australian-affiliated authors
from papers published between 2002 and October 2011, in journals indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Web of
Science, were reviewed. A shortlist of researchers in each field was established by finding those authors who
had published a given number of papers, each of which had been cited that given number of times – a metric
called the h-index. This meant that only researchers who had made a strong contribution in terms of both
quality and quantity were considered. Because field activity can vary widely, adjustments were made in the
threshold levels for each field to eliminate false leads and focus on those researchers with substantial and
long-term contributions.
The shortlist was then ranked by average citations per paper received, and the highest ranking author currently
and actively producing research output was identified. This ensured that researchers would be selected who
had a proven track record of high-impact research over the course of the ten year period. Where variation
between the top and second ranked candidates was less than one citation per article, a second metric, average
percentile, was used to differentiate them. This metric looks at how highly ranked a paper is by citations
against papers of the same type, published in the same year and in the same field, thereby allowing accurate
comparison of the candidates’ impact.
Field of Study Names Institution H-Index Cites Publications
Astronomy &
Astrophysics
Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology
Biodiversity
Conservation
Professor
Karl Glazebrook
9
Swinburne
University of
Technology
Professor Terry Speed Walter and Eliza
Hall Institute of
Medical Research
Dr Jane Elith University of
Melbourne
Ecology Professor
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
University of
Queensland
69 22,245 181
51 19,623 263
25 2,986 42
39 8,623 172
Economics Dr Tommy Wiedmann CSIRO 15 574 25
Environmental Studies Dr Shaobin Wang Curtin University 32 3,018 129
Geosciences Professor
Kurt Lambeck
Immunology Professor
Fabienne Mackay
Australian
National
University
Monash
University
Neurosciences Dr Greg Stuart Australian
National
University
52 9,682 217
46 8,297 105
39 6,585 71
Plant Sciences Professor Rana Munns CSIRO 45 9,848 114
Psychology Professor
Colin MacLeod
Public, Environmental
& Occupational Health
University
of Western
Australia
Dr Evie Leslie Flinders
University
25 5,062 53
18 2,149 36