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Research: Comparisons of Publication Quantity and Quality

Note

  1. FWCI (Field-Weighted Citation Impact): The number of citations received by a given publication divided by the world average for publications of the same publication year, subject area, and document type. An FWCI of 1 or higher indicates that the average impact is at or above the world average.
  2. Types of publications included: articles and reviews. Self-citations: included.
  3. RU11 (Research University 11) is a consortium that aims to develop academia via eleven universities: Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, The University of Tokyo, Waseda University, Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, and Kyushu University. RU11 is composed of both national and private universities.
  4. Percentage of Publications Carried in the World's Top Journals: The percentage of papers published in journals that fall within the top 1%, 5%, 10%, and 25%, based on annual citation counts in Elsevier’s Scopus.
  5. Types of publications included: articles and reviews. Top journals by CiteScore percentile.
  6. Percentage of Outputs in Top 10% Citation Percentiles: The percentage of publications (field-normalized) that rank among the world’s top based on citations. This indicates the share of publications that fall within the top 10% by citation counts for each year in Elsevier’s Scopus.
  7. Types of publications included: articles and reviews. Self-citations: included. Field-weighted: yes.
  8. ASJC 27 subject areas and ASJC 334 fields: The 27 subject areas and 334 fields based on Scopus journal classifications (ASJC: All Science Journal Classification). Translation assistance provided by the National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education. (Translations of the subject areas are by Elsevier.)
  9. A higher number of publications combined with a higher FWCI indicates greater depth of research strength (an institutional strength). When the number of publications is small but FWCI is high, it often reflects the presence of specific faculty members with strong research performance. If such faculty belong to very large research communities, both the publication count and FWCI tend to be high.
  10. Multidisciplinary fields refer to papers published in comprehensive scientific journals such as Nature and Science.
  11. Among all 318 fields, 157 fields have an FWCI exceeding the world average of 1.0. Fields with high FWCI but few publications may indicate the presence of specific high-performing researchers, whereas fields with both high FWCI and many publications indicate substantial depth of research strength (an institutional strength).
  12. For Tokyo Institute of Technology, the data used are from before the establishment of Tokyo Science University in October 2024, following the merger of Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University.

References

  • Elsevier’s "SciVal", as of September 2025