Research Impact Leaders Award is part of an international initiative by Elsevier publishing house aimed at supporting research and development of various scholarly disciplines.
The awards are a way of recognising the achievements of eminent research institutions, which have greatest impact on world research and contribute to the greater international recognition of Polish science and academia. The Jagiellonian University was honoured for its high number of citations in the area of foresting and veterinary medicine.
Elsevier launched a project aimed to improve the visibility of research achievements of Polish universities in the world. It involves cooperation with the leading research institutions, which would like to increase their chances of obtaining grants, greater international recognition, and increasing their internationalisation level.
The factors taken into account are: the increase of the number of articles in most prestigious research journals, participation of foreign co-authors and the number of citations in a given discipline. The awards are conferred in 6 broad thematic areas (in accordance with the OECD classification): Life Sciences/Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Humanities, Medical Sciences, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.
The award in the area of Life Sciences and Agricultural Sciences went to the Jagiellonian University for the very high internationalisation level of its publications and a large number of citations in this field. The Research Impact Leaders Award 2016 gala took place in Warsaw within the framework of the conference Polish Universities in International Perspective. Rankings and Strategic Management of a University. The award was presented to the Rector of the Jagiellonian University Prof. Wojciech Nowak.
According to the award statement, as far as foresting and veterinary medicine are concerned, “438 Jagiellonian University publications were indexed in 2013-2015, which means 22.2 percent growth for this time period. At the same time the number of publishing authors reached 673 (a 44.6 percent growth). All papers in this category were cited 1.35 times more often than the worldwide average. 5.5 percent of the JU publications from in this category were among the 10 percent of journals with the highest impact in a given discipline. This translates into a high proportion (16.4 percent) of JU publications among the 10 percent of most frequently cited works in the selected disciplines. 23.3 percent of JU publications have been among the 10 percent of world’s most read research papers during the last three years ... At the moment, the readership of these publications is 59 percent higher than world’s average and amounts to 1.59”.
