Frank Geels, Eddie Davies Professor of Sustainability Transitions at AMBS, has been named one of the world’s top 100 most cited scholars in a ranking by Stanford University.
Using data from Elsevier and Scopus, the analysis of the world’s ‘top 2% most influential scientists’ uses a database of 210,199 scholars across 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields. In this year’s ranking of the top 2%, just published, Professor Geels is placed 98th based on an analysis of citations in 2022. The only other scholar from Manchester in the top 100 is Nobel Laureate Andre Geim at 47th.
The analysis also identified Professor Geels as the most cited scholar in the world in the sub-field of science studies, and the fifth most cited in the business and management field.
Professor Geels said: “I am delighted to be included in the list because it acknowledges the importance and academic influence of my work. It’s a particular honour to be in the top 100 because their standardised citation indicators give greater credit to single or lead-authored papers to acknowledge their pivotal contributions to the work.”
International policy
He added that it was also fantastic to see his work increasingly being cited and used by international policymakers, who acknowledge the importance of system transitions for sustainable development.
Some recent examples include a 2023 United Nations report (Global Sustainable Development Report 2023: Times of crisis, times of change: Science for accelerating transformations to sustainable development), a 2023 European Environment Agency report (Transforming Europe's Food System: Assessing the EU Policy Mix), a 2023 OECD report (OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2023: Enabling Transitions in Times of Disruption), a 2022 European Commission report (Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU 2022: Building a sustainable future in uncertain times), and a 2022 United Nations report (The Closing Window: Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies).
Urgency
Professor Geels added: “My recent work aims to respond to the increasing sense of urgency in these policy reports and the growing interest in the acceleration of sustainability transitions. Recent work with Martina Ayoub, for example, analyses the dynamics of positive tipping points in transitions. And a recent book with Bruno Turnheim makes a big picture analysis of whole system reconfiguration.”
The Stanford ranking, which is now published by Elsevier, creates standardised citation indicators that adjust and weigh citation scores of author articles on various dimensions, including the number of co-authors and the author order (in particular single, first, or last position authorships since these positions suggest pivotal contributions to the work). Cited articles with 50 co-authors thus ‘count’ for less than single authored publications. In recent years Professor Geels has regularly appeared just outside the top 100 in the list.