From crop yields to coral bleaching, research by four Lancaster University academics has been included in this year’s list of Highly Cited Researchers from Clarivate.

The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade.

Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index.

The Lancaster University highly cited researchers for 2020 are:

· Professor Nick Graham, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a Chair in Marine Ecology at the Lancaster Environment Centre. He tackles large-scale ecological and social-ecological coral reef issues under the overarching themes of climate change, human use and resilience. He has assessed the impacts of climate induced coral bleaching on coral reef fish assemblages, fisheries and ecosystem stability. He has studied the patterns and processes by which degraded coral reefs recover, and how this can be influenced by management.

· Professor Steve Long, a Distinguished Professor of Crop Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society and Member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He uses computational and experimental approaches to improve photosynthetic efficiency, and works to address the effects of climate change on crop yield. He has been recognised as a highly cited researcher in the field of plant and animal science every year since 2005.

· Professor Saidur Rahman is Professor of Energy Technology at Lancaster’s Department of Engineering and also Professor of Nanomaterials and Energy Technology at Sunway University, Malaysia. His work includes research into nanomaterials for renewable energy within Lancaster’s Energy Research Group. He has published more than 500 journal papers, a majority in top-ranking journals. Since his appointment to Lancaster, he has published nearly 60 journal articles, proceedings papers, book chapters and reviews with a Lancaster affiliation. He promotes collaborative links between Lancaster and Sunway and has worked with Lancaster’s Chemical Engineering and Energy Research Groups in applying for Malaysian Government and Newton Fund research grants in the areas of MXene nanofluids and concentrated solar power. He is ranked 49 in the field of Mechanical engineering and 50 in the field of energy among the global scientists published by the Mendeley database.

· Professor Jess Chua is from Lancaster University Management School where he studies Entrepreneurship and Strategy with a particular focus on family firms. His research has made contributions to fundamental theoretical issues with respect to family firm goals, resources, and governance. He was also listed by Web of Science among the top 1% in citation for the 2010-2019 decade in the combined field of Economics and Business.

Ranked in the top ten in three major national league tables, Lancaster University has a strong track record of excellence in both teaching and research - 83% of research at Lancaster was rated as either internationally excellent or world leading in the last Research Excellence Framework exercise (REF).

Professor Louise Heathwaite, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise at Lancaster University, said: “I am so pleased to see both familiar and new names appearing on this list of critically leading and global highly-cited researchers; even more so as the areas of research excellence address themes such as environment and sustainability that are core to our institutional strategy. May I extend huge congratulations to all. We are delighted to see our colleagues recognised in this way.”

David Pendlebury, Senior Citation Analyst at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate said: “In the race for knowledge, it is human capital that is fundamental and this list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers at Lancaster University who are having a great impact on the research community as measured by the rate at which their work is being cited by others.”

The methodology that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these scientific elite are based.

The full 2020 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary can be found here