Bringing Smart Citations to Rankings
Introduction
For an extended period, the scientific community—including researchers, universities, and academics—has depended on basic citation counts to assess the significance of scholarly output. Metrics such as the Impact Factor, h-Index, and G-index all employ this elementary tactic. Prominent university rankings like the Times Higher Education, Shanghai Rankings, and QS World University Rankings also integrate citation data into their evaluations. It is evident that citations form a fundamental part of rating any academic unit, whether individual journals or entire institutions.
However, this approach is flawed by its oversimplification: a citation that documents a failure to reproduce a central result is weighted identically to one that confirms a successful replication. Now, with the advent of a robust new system known as Scite Rankings, we at last have a more refined method to overcome this limitation.
Scite’s Rankings
Scite Smart Citations employ artificial intelligence to categorize academic citations as supporting, contrasting, or merely mentioning the referenced work. To date, we have analyzed 1.4 billion citation statements extracted from more than 38 million scholarly articles. We are excited to introduce our inaugural annual rankings report, covering disciplines, institutions, and journals. This marks the first ranking framework that advances past simple tallies of citations to include insights drawn from citation context.
Our rankings derive from an entity’s Scite Index. This index is calculated using both reference counts (the number of papers citing a journal, or papers linked to a university, etc.) and Scite’s Smart Citations, thereby offering a fuller understanding of how the scholarly community has engaged with an entity’s publications.
Comparison to other research rankings
Although many leading institutions maintain similar standings (i.e., numerous renowned organizations in Scite’s top 10 also appear in the top 10 of other established research rankings), our methodology yields notable distinctions. For instance, the University of Michigan places 21st in the 2024 Shanghai rankings (which order by publication volume) and 47th in the Times Higher Education 2025 rankings (based on their Research Quality indicator). Yet, Michigan ranks 8th in Scite’s assessment, partly because of supporting citations received by papers from its affiliated authors.
Consider, as an example, the paper “How Does it STAC Up? Revisiting the Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition,” authored in 2014 by UM’s Michael I Posner Collegiate Professor of Psychology, Patricia A. Reuter‐Lorenz, and published in Neuropsychology Review. In 2024, this work attracted 15 supporting citations and zero contrasting citations. While the paper received 119 references during the same period—a relatively moderate figure—the strong supportive response elevates its Scite Index value, which consequently raises the overall ranking of the University of Michigan in our 2024 evaluation.
Conclusion
The time has come to transcend mere citation counts and introduce genuine discernment into the measurement of scientific influence. With Scite’s Smart Citations and the Scite Index, we are pioneering a new era in academic rankings. Explore our rankings and review our detailed methodology paper for further insights.
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