A total of 74* Unicamp researchers are among those with the greatest impact in the world. The result is highlighted by a new survey published by the North American magazine PLOS Biology. The list presents the 100 scientists with the greatest impact in their research, considering citation metrics for their work, as well as other names that are not among these 100, but make up the equivalent of 2% of the millions of researchers in the world with the greatest impact. of research, which totals around 150 thousand names. The assessment of the impact of citations used by the authors respects the specific characteristics of the different areas of knowledge and, among the lists that make up the study, the two main ones evaluate the impact accumulated by researchers throughout their career and the data referring only to the year 2019.
Among the names that appear on the list with the greatest impact in the entire career, only in 2019 and in both, Unicamp has a total of 74 researchers in the areas of Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Computing, Mathematics, Biology, Medicine and Dentistry. The University is the second in the country with the largest number of scientists identified by the survey. Among the researchers with the greatest career impact, there are 600 Brazilians, 54 of whom are from Unicamp. The University of São Paulo (USP) was the one that registered the most Brazilian researchers in this category, with 120 names. In the list of names with the greatest impact in 2019, Brazil has 853 names. In total, there are 59 professionals from Unicamp, second only to USP, with 158 researchers.
"It is always gratifying to see the impact of our university on the global, Latin American and Brazilian science scene. Unicamp is very well represented, also considering the number of professors we have, and the diversity of areas in which we operate. I would like to congratulate here to everyone who continually dedicates themselves to improving the quality of research", noted Marcelo Knobel, dean of Unicamp.
Growth of Brazilian science, but reservations with rankings
As noted by Peter Schulz, Communication Secretary at Unicamp and who works with monitoring scientific activity, the comparison between the two lists allows us to observe an important growth both in the number of Brazilian scientists among the most influential, and in the distribution of scientific development in the country . "Among universities, state universities in São Paulo remain at the top of the impact list in 2019 with USP in first place, with 158 names, followed by Unicamp with 56. UFRJ appears in third place, with 50, and Unesp with 45. Although the distribution of scientists is concentrated in the Southeast region, the most influential scientists are spread across almost all Brazilian states, including now the state of Tocantins. It is also possible to observe the presence of a wide range of areas and sub-areas of knowledge", points out Peter, who also observes the participation of health and technology centers not directly linked to universities, such as the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), Petrobrás and the National Energy Research Center and Materials (CNPEM).
He emphasizes that the study is an important source of data for more detailed assessments, but that care is needed when observing the information contained in the lists. According to the professor, the two lists show different scenarios, which requires attention. "Both include scientists who have already died, but are still cited. This, on the one hand, places active scientists in a broad historical context, but with distortions and incompleteness. A curious example is that of Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry 1932 died in 1957. The lists consider articles published between 1960 and 2019. Langmuir appears with two articles published in that period, despite having already died. They are probably republications of previous articles", he notes.
Luiz Carlos Dias, professor at the Chemistry Institute (IQ) from Unicamp and member of the Unicamp Task Force against Covid-19, considers that rankings of this type fail to consider aspects that are also important when evaluating the impact of a researcher. "Despite being on the list, I think that other factors and contributions should be used! There are many Brazilian scientists with notable contributions that are not on the list. This could send the wrong message to our young scientists", he warns.
The president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Luiz Davidovich, makes a similar assessment: "These lists do not necessarily contain influential scientists, and furthermore they leave out very influential scientists, with fundamental contributions to their respective areas. One of the reasons for this is that comparing different area citation indices of science doesn't make sense: for example, works in the area of pure mathematics tend to have citation rates much lower than those in other areas of science", he analyzes.
He argues that other parameters, not just numerical indices, should also be used to assess a researcher's influence. "For example, international recognition through plenary lectures at the most important international conferences, prestigious international awards, membership in science academies, etc", emphasizes Davidovich.
The complete study and the list of all highlighted researchers, including Brazilian names, are available on the PLOS Biology magazine website: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918
FEA professor appears on Web of Science list
Another list, prepared by the website Web of Science, from the company Clarivate Analytics, included 19 Brazilian researchers among 6.389 influential names in science from around the world. The survey was carried out based on the number of cited articles produced by researchers between January 2009 and December 2019.
Unicamp was represented on the list by professor Anderson Sant'Ana, from the Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA), whose publications had an impact on the area of Agricultural Sciences. In addition to him, researchers from USP, Instituto de Cardiologia Dante Pazzanese, Embrapa, University of Brasília (UnB) and Federal Universities of São Paulo (Unifesp), Pelotas (UFPel), Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Fluminense (UFF), Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and Santa Maria (UFSM).
The complete publication can be seen at https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/
Check out the complete list of Unicamp researchers nominated on the PLOS Biology lists:
*Due to differences between the two lists regarding the credit of the institutions to which the researchers are members, the total number of Unicamp researchers nominated is 74, different from the 73 previously reported. In the lists, professors Mario José Abdalla Saad (FCM) and Paulo Mazzafera (IB) are named as professors at USP, included here as members of Unicamp. In addition to the 74 listed in the report, deceased professors from Unicamp were also mentioned in the PLOS Biology lists: Alcir José Monticelli (FEEC), Jaime Frejlich (IFGW), Patricio Anibal Letelier Sotomayor (IMECC) and Ulf Friedich Schuchardt (IQ).
