The newly released ESI (Essential Science Indicators) on Jan. 1, 2013 saw the citation counts of Jiangnan University (JU) ranked amongst the first 1% of all the international universities and institutions —— in the main for the four academic disciplines of chemistry, agricultural sciences, biology and biochemistry in their respective fields, with biology and biochemistry being such honored the first time historically.
JU, as ESI statistics shows, ranked No. 1480 among the 5,132 research institutions of the first 1% of ESI rankings. There were in total 4,092 JU’s papers indexed in the period in all the 22 disciplines of ESI, the overall citation counts adding up to 22,476, with the average frequency of 5.49 per paper.
Additionally, JU boasts 60 highly cited papers and 7 hot papers of ESI of the year, both unprecedented. The 60 papers, all within the first 1% of their own academic areas, are distributed in such seven fields as biology and biochemistry(1), physics(1), engineering(36), chemistry(5), agricultural sciences(5), mathematics(4), as well as computer science(8). The other 7 hot papers, released in the last 2 years in the field of engineering(6) and computer science(1), were cited with the top 0.1% largest number of times in the world.
ESI is a world famous academic information publishing mechanism of American science and Technology Information Institute (ISI) and a critical evaluation of the literature launched in 2001. The database, in view of the 22 professional fields, is based on the statistics and analysis of the papers cited by SCI (Science Citation Index) and SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index) among all universities and institutions globally. Only when the papers’ citations counts are within the first 1% can the disciplines be ranked in ESI. ESI also provides a brief analysis of the data in terms of the rankings of scientists, research institutions, journals and nations, and is instrumental to assess the specific research achievements and influence and to track the trend and direction in the field of study.(Han)
