Max Planck among the top ten institutions of the Highly Cited Researcher awards

The analysis by Clarivate Analytics provides information about researchers who have published the most highly cited publications in the last ten years. In addition to the research areas, the institutions for which they work are also identified.

This year, Clarivate has presented 7,131 Highly Cited Researcher Awards to 6,868 individuals. Some researchers have received awards in more than one field, resulting in more awards than individual laureates. Researchers work in 60 countries and regions, but 86 percent of the awards are concentrated in just 10 countries – and three-quarters even in the top five alone. With 363 particularly influential researchers, Germany is in 4th place – behind the USA, China and Great Britain. Among the top ten from Europe are the Netherlands (7th place), Switzerland (9th place) and France (10th place).

With a total of 1,378 highly cited researchers, however, the Europeans are on a par with China (1,406 researchers). The USA has 2670 highly cited researchers. Max Planck was able to make significant gains (from 56 highly cited researchers in 2024 to 66 in 2025) and has thus moved up from ninth to seventh place.

The method for identifying highly cited researchers who are among the top 1 percent in their field in terms of the number of citations includes not only the number of publications and citations, but also factors that lead to researchers who expand knowledge at the frontiers of research and have a community-wide impact and impact. Original articles are therefore weighted more heavily than overview articles. In addition, all articles whose authors had been removed from the previous year's Highly Cited Researchers list due to problems with research integrity were excluded. This meant that all those who worked regularly with these researchers had less chance of being included in the list.

Source: Influential Authors 2025