Abstract Purpose The ranking lists of highly cited researchers receive much public attention. In common interpretations, highly cited researchers are perceived to have made extraordinary contributions to science. Thus, the metrics of highly cited researchers are often linked to notions of breakthroughs, scientific excellence, and lone geniuses. Design/methodology/approach In this study, we analyze a sample of individuals who appear on Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers list. The main purpose is to juxtapose the characteristics of their research performance against the claim that the list captures a small fraction of the researcher population that contributes disproportionately to extending the frontier and gaining—on behalf of society—knowledge and innovations that make the world healthier, richer, sustainable, and more secure. Findings The study reveals that the highly cited articles of the selected individuals generally have a very large number of authors. Thus, these papers seldom represent individual contributions but rather are the result of large collective research efforts conducted in research consortia. This challenges the common perception of highly cited researchers as individual geniuses who can be singled out for their extraordinary contributions. Moreover, the study indicates that a few of the individuals have not even contributed to highly cited original research but rather to reviews or clinical guidelines. Finally, the large number of authors of the papers implies that the ranking list is very sensitive to the specific method used for allocating papers and citations to individuals. In the “whole count” methodology applied by Clarivate Analytics, each author gets full credit of the papers regardless of the number of additional co-authors. The study shows that the ranking list would look very different using an alternative fractionalised methodology. Research limitations The study is based on a limited part of the total population of highly cited researchers. Practical implications It is concluded that “excellence” understood as highly cited encompasses very different types of research and researchers of which many do not fit with dominant preconceptions. Originality/value The study develops further knowledge on highly cited researchers, addressing questions such as who becomes highly cited and the type of research that benefits by defining excellence in terms of citation scores and specific counting methods.

中文翻译：

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孤独的天才还是众多天才中的一员？当代高被引学者的探索性研究

摘要 目的 高被引研究人员排名受到社会广泛关注。在通常的解释中，被高度引用的研究人员被认为对科学做出了非凡的贡献。因此，高被引研究人员的指标通常与突破、科学卓越和孤独的天才等概念相关联。设计/方法/方法 在这项研究中，我们分析了出现在 Clarivate Analytics 高被引研究人员名单上的个人样本。主要目的是将他们的研究表现的特征与声称该列表捕获了一小部分研究人员群体的说法并列，这些群体对扩展前沿和获得——代表社会——使世界更健康的知识和创新做出了不成比例的贡献，更丰富、可持续和更安全。调查结果 该研究表明，被选中的个人的高被引文章通常具有非常多的作者。因此，这些论文很少代表个人贡献，而是研究联盟进行的大型集体研究努力的结果。这挑战了人们普遍认为的高被引研究人员是个人天才，他们可以因其非凡的贡献而被挑选出来。此外，该研究表明，其中一些人甚至没有对高被引的原始研究做出贡献，而是对评论或临床指南做出了贡献。最后，论文的大量作者意味着排名列表对用于将论文和引用分配给个人的特定方法非常敏感。在 Clarivate Analytics 应用的“整体计数”方法中，无论有多少额外的共同作者，每位作者都将获得论文的全部学分。研究表明，使用另一种细分方法，排名列表看起来会非常不同。研究局限性 该研究基于高被引研究人员总数的有限部分。实际意义 得出的结论是，被高度引用的“卓越”包括非常不同类型的研究和研究人员，其中许多不符合主流的先入之见。原创性/价值 该研究进一步了解高被引研究人员，解决诸如谁被高引用以及通过定义引文分数和特定计数方法方面的卓越性而受益的研究类型等问题。实际意义 得出的结论是，被高度引用的“卓越”包括非常不同类型的研究和研究人员，其中许多不符合主流的先入之见。原创性/价值 该研究进一步了解高被引研究人员，解决诸如谁被高引用以及通过定义引文分数和特定计数方法方面的卓越性而受益的研究类型等问题。实际意义 得出的结论是，被高度引用的“卓越”包括非常不同类型的研究和研究人员，其中许多不符合主流的先入之见。原创性/价值 该研究进一步了解高被引研究人员，解决诸如谁被高引用以及通过定义引文分数和特定计数方法方面的卓越性而受益的研究类型等问题。