About

What is this?

Top-Cited Scientists is a free, fast way to explore the yearly list of the world's top-cited researchers, often called the Stanford–Elsevier top 2% scientists list. Search 249,310 researchers across every field of science, see where any of them stands in the world, in their field, country and institution, compare them side by side, and follow how their standing changes from year to year.

What you can do

• Find any researcher. Type any part of a name, in any order; accents and punctuation don't matter (muller finds “Müller”). Press / to jump to the search box.
• See where they rank. Click a researcher for their rank worldwide, in their subfield, country and institution, a breakdown of their score, and how they compare with everyone in their subfield.
• Compare side by side. Press Compare in a profile to line up to 6 researchers next to each other, and add more from the search box in the comparison.
• Follow changes over time. Switch between the 2025, 2024 and 2023 lists with the years at the top of the list. Each profile shows the same researcher in the other years.
• Filter and sort. Narrow the list by country, field, subfield, institution or career stage (when researchers first published, with each one's rank among their peers), sort by any column, and switch between the 2025 list and the career-long list, with or without self-citations. The Nobel laureates tab finds the Nobel Prize winners in the list, by country, prize and field.
• Browse by place and subject. Countries, Institutions and Fields have a page for each country, institution and field with its leading institutions, fields and subfields. Every number there opens the researchers behind it.
• Share what you find. The address keeps your search, filters and open profile, so you can bookmark a view, send it to someone, or share it with the icons in a profile or the Share links at the bottom of the page.

Free and independent

The site is free to use and needs no account. It is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the dataset authors, Stanford University, Elsevier or Scopus.

Where the figures come from, who is included and how the ranking works are explained under Data & licence. For questions, feedback or a wrong affiliation, use the contact page.