Skip to Main Content

Essential Science Indicators (ESI) - 2024: Learn the Basics

Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

Essential Science Indicators (ESI) is a deep analysis research tool database to identify top-performing research based on the Web of Science Core Collection. ESI surveys more than 11,000 journals worldwide to rank authors, institutions, countries, and journals in 22 broad fields based on publication and citation performance. 

What You Need To Know about ESI:

Data Source: SCIE、SSCI、A&HCI
Time Scope: 10-year rolling file, updated bi-monthly
Type of references: Article and Review
Research fields: 22, a journal can be assigned to only one field

1. Indicators

  • Performance analysis of authors, institutions, countries, and journals according to 22 disciplines
  • View ESI highly cited papers and ESI hot papers

2. Field Baselines

  • Average citation counts of articles in 22 disciplines
  • The citation counts of papers fall within the thresholds of the top 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%, 20%, and 50% of the corresponding disciplines.

3. Citation Thresholds

  • Thresholds for authors and institutions in the top 1% by citation count.
  • Thresholds for countries and journals in the top 50% by citation count.

  1. Select Indicators
  2. Keep the default "Research Fields" in the Result List dropdown menu
  3. Choose "institution" in Add Filter
  4. Search for the institution name in the search box

The Education University of Hong Kong has six disciplines in the top 1% of ESI: Environment/Ecology, Social Sciences, General, Psychiatry/Psychology, Chemistry, Materials Science, and Engineering. (InCites Essential Science Indicators dataset updated Dec 9, 2024.)

  1. Select Indicators
  2. Choose "Institutions" from the Result List dropdown menu
  3. Select "Research Fields" in Add Filter, for example, we select "Social Sciences, General" 

Click the small triangle next to "Institutions", select "Filters" from the dropdown menu, enter the school name in the search box, and find the school ranking in the list. 

EdUHK's "Social Science, General" discipline ranks 403th among the 2308 institutions in the top 1% of ESI disciplines. (InCites Essential Science Indicators dataset updated Dec 9, 2024.)

  1. Select “Citation Threshold” module
  2. On the left, choose "ESI Threshold."
  3. In the results area, find the threshold for the corresponding discipline, such as "Social Sciences, General"

The threshold for EdUHK in the top 1% of the "Social Sciences, General" discipline is 1,926 (InCites Essential Science Indicators dataset updated Dec 9, 2024).

  1. Select Indicators
  2. Keep the default "Research Fields" in the Result List dropdown menu
  3. Choose "institution" in Add Filter
  4. Search for the institution name in the search box 

From the dropdown menu under "Include Result For", select:

  • Top Papers 
  • Highly Cited Papers - papers that perform in the top 1% based on the number of citations received when compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year
  • Hot Papers - papers published in the last two years that are receiving citations quickly after publication

Click on the blue bar graph to be redirected to the list of papers.

  1. Select the Field Baseline module
  2. On the left, select "Citation Rates
  3. Find the baseline for average citations per paper for the corresponding discipline in the results area

The baseline for average citations per paper in the "Social Sciences, General" discipline for 2020 is 10.39. Therefore, if a paper published in the "Social Sciences, General" discipline in 2020 has a citation count of at least 10.39, its citation performance is at least at the global average level. (InCites Essential Science Indicators dataset updated Dec 09, 2024).

  1. Select Indicators
  2. In the Result List dropdown menu, choose 'Research Fronts.'
  3. In Add Filter, select 'Research Fields.'

   

4. After selecting 'Social Sciences, General', the list in the lower right will update automatically. From left to right, it displays the number of research fronts, the content of the research fronts, the number of high-level papers, and the average year.

5. Click on the blue bar chart to obtain detailed information for each Top Paper