India shines globally: Over 6,200 researchers make Stanford’s top 2% scientists list

Indian researchers have made a strong showing in Stanford University’s 7th edition of the world’s top 2% scientists list, with 6,239 entries in the single-year category for 2024, marking a significant rise compared to the country’s 3,372 entries in the career-long rankings.

The list highlights the contributions of scientists from premier Indian institutions. Among Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), 755 researchers were featured in the single-year category, while over 330 came from National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and 117 from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore.

Medical and other universities also had strong representation. Eighty researchers from the All India Institutes of Medical Science (AIIMS), mostly from AIIMS New Delhi (56), were included.

Other notable contributors came from state-run Jadavpur University (50), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR, 88), Amity University (80), Aligarh Muslim University (46), and Banaras Hindu University (51).

Additionally, 59 researchers from Punjab-based Chitkara University, a private institution, made it to the list.

In the career-long category, 613 scientists from IITs were recognized, with IIT Delhi leading at 105, followed by IIT Kharagpur (91), IIT Madras (75), and IIT Bombay (70).

IIMs collectively had 10 entries in the career-long list and 36 in the single-year category. Other institutions included NITs (140), IISc (134), ICAR (43), Jadavpur University (40), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (39), Banaras Hindu University (38), Delhi University (38), and Amity University (26).

The 2024 single-year list reflects a 16% increase over last year, while career-long entries dropped nearly 37%.

In 2023, 4,635 Indian scientists made the career-long list, which was then based solely on cumulative citations.

The rankings are based on Scopus citation data as of Aug 1. Scientists are evaluated using a composite citation score (c-score), with and without self-citations, and only those in the top 100,000 globally or the top 2% in their subfield are included.

Researchers are categorized into 22 broad scientific fields and 174 sub-fields according to the Science-Metrix system, with percentile ranks assigned to all scientists with at least five publications.

Two separate lists are published: career-long data, updated through the end of 2024, and single-year data, covering citations received during calendar year 2024.

Globally, the United States leads both lists, with 87,859 scientists in the career-long category and 73,018 in the single-year category.

Great Britain, Germany, China, France, Russia, and Brazil follow in varying ranks, with China overtaking Great Britain in the single-year category with 31,685 researchers. Check full list: