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09.22.2021 | Member News & Releases

Clarivate Unveils Citation Laureates 2021 – Annual List of Researchers of Nobel Class

This year’s list includes 16 new Citation Laureates from institutions in six countries: France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, United States  

59 Citation Laureates named by the Institute for Scientific Information have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize 

September 22, 2021 – Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CLVT), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, today named 16 world-class researchers from six countries as Citation Laureates™. These are researchers whose work is deemed to be ‘of Nobel class’, as demonstrated by analysis carried out by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)™.  

Each year since 2002, ISI analysts have drawn on Web of Science™ publication and citation data to identify influential researchers in the research areas recognized by Nobel Prizes: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. Out of some 52 million articles and proceedings indexed in the Web of Science since 1970, only 6,500 (or .01%) have been cited 2,000 or more times. It is from the authors of this group of papers that Citation Laureates are identified and selected. They are individuals whose research publications are highly cited and whose contributions to science have been extremely influential, even transformative. 

In early October 2021, the Nobel Assembly will vote to confer science’s highest honor. While this annual rite inspires worldwide speculation, Clarivate is the only organization to use quantitative data in addition to qualitative assessment to provide valuable insights about who might be chosen. To date, 59 Citation Laureates listed in the Hall of Citation Laureates have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize. 

Joel Haspel, SVP Strategy, Science, Clarivate said: “This year’s Citation Laureates have pioneered some of the most important research of our time, accelerating our understanding of subjects as varied as free radicals, virus identification and financial crises. It is because of their foundational work that the pace of innovation in drug development, economic theory and entrepreneurship can continue to progress. We are delighted to recognize and celebrate their enormous achievements, demonstrating that their citation records reflect their influence on their colleagues, research fields and society as a whole.” 

Commenting on his recognition as a Citation Laureate, Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University said: “In Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he says the main reason why people work so hard and go through all this trouble is they want other people like themselves to respect them. So being recognized by Clarivate as a Citation Laureate tells me that at least somebody is paying attention to my work, and that makes me feel very good. People have this inner need to be recognized by people like themselves, and I think peer recognition is therefore a big driver of all kinds of science in the world today – and that’s been a great blessing because it’s science, of course, that has brought us where we are.” 

David Pendlebury, Senior Citation Analyst at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate said: “For a paper to be cited 2,000 times or more is a rarity. Authors of very highly cited papers are usually members of national academies of sciences, hold senior appointments in universities and other research institutes, and have received many top international prizes in their fields. Indeed, many of them have helped to shape their fields of study. Some of these ‘scientific elites’ go on to receive Nobel honors, demonstrating each year the association between citations in the literature, influence through a research community, and peer judgement.” 

This year nine of the 16 honorees are based at leading academic institutions in the United States, three are based in Japan, and others hail from France, Italy, Korea and Singapore. 

The 2021 Citation Laureates are: 

Physiology or Medicine 

Jean-Pierre Changeux, Professor Emeritus, Collège de France & Institut Pasteur, Paris, FRANCE; International Faculty, Kavli Institute for Brain & Mind, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, USA (2012-2022) 

For contributions to our understanding of neuroreceptors and especially the identification of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and its allosteric properties 

Toshio Hirano, President, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Chiba; Professor Emeritus, Osaka University, Osaka, JAPAN, and 
Tadamitsu Kishimoto, Professor, Laboratory of Immune Regulation, WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka, JAPAN  

For discovery of interleukin-6, description of its physiological and pathological actions, that has contributed to drug development 

Karl M. Johnson, Formerly with Center for Disease Control and Prevention; Adjunct Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico, New Mexico, USA, and 
Ho Wang Lee, Professor Emeritus, Korea University, Seoul, REPUBLIC OF KOREA; Former President & Member, The National Academy of Sciences, Seoul, REPUBLIC OF KOREA 

For identification and isolation of the Hantaan virus (hantavirus), agent of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome 

Physics 

Alexei Y. Kitaev, Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, California Institute of Technology and Institute of Quantum Information and Matter, Pasadena, California, USA 

For topological quantum computation, in which quantum information is encoded and protected using topological properties of many-body systems 

Mark E. J. Newman, Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 

For wide-ranging research on network systems including work on community structure and random graph models 

Giorgio Parisi, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, ITALY 

For ground-breaking discoveries in quantum-chromodynamics and in the study of complex disordered systems 

Chemistry 

Barry Halliwell, Senior Advisor (Academic Appointments and Research Excellence), Office of the Senior Deputy President and Provost, National University of Singapore (NUS); Chair of the Biomedical Advisory Council, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR); Distinguished Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, SINGAPORE 

For pioneering research in free-radical chemistry including the role of free radicals and antioxidants in human disease 

William L. Jorgensen, Sterling Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA 

For methods and studies in the computational chemistry of organic and biomolecular systems in solution, contributing to rational drug design and synthesis 

Mitsuo Sawamoto, Professor, Frontier Research Institute, Chubu University, Kasugai, Aichi, JAPAN; Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University, Kyoto, JAPAN  

For discovery and development of metal-catalyzed living radical polymerization 

Economics 

David B. Audretsch, Distinguished Professor, Ameritech Chair of Economic Development, and Director, Institute for Development Strategies, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, and 

David J. Teece, Director, Tusher Initiative for the Management of Intellectual Capital; Professor of Business Administration, Institute for Business Innovation, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA 

For pioneering research on entrepreneurship, innovation, and competition 

Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA 

For studies of the history and culture of technological progress and its economic consequences 

Carmen M. Reinhart, Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and 

Kenneth S. Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA  

For contributions to international macroeconomics and insights on global debt and financial crises 

 

To learn more about the methodology of the list and view our Hall of Citation Laureates, please visit our website.  

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