Features and signals in precocious citation impact: A meta-research study

John P A Ioannidis

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: The current analysis aimed to evaluate the profiles of scientists who reach top citation impact in a very short time once they start publishing. Precocious citation impact was defined as rising to become a top-cited scientist within t ≤ 8 years after the first publication year. Ultra-precocious citation impact was defined similarly for t ≤ 5 years. Top-cited authors included those in the top-2% of a previously validated composite citation indicator across 174 subfields of science or in the top-100,000 authors of that composite citation indicator across all science based on Scopus. Annual data between 2017 and 2023 show a strong increase over time, with 469 precocious and 66 ultra-precocious citation impact author profiles in 2023. In-depth assessment of validated ultra-precocious scientists in 2023, showed significantly higher frequency of less developed country affiliation; clustering in 4 high-risk subfields; high self-citations for their field; being top-cited only when self-citations were included; high citations to citing papers ratio for their field; extreme publishing behavior; extreme citation orchestration metric c/h2; and high percentage of citations given to first-authored papers compared with all top-cited authors (p

Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0328531

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328531

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