Self-citation pattern among world's top 2 % of the scientists

Although self-citation is a common practice among scholars, its impact and significance remain under scrutiny within the academic community. The current study aimed to provide a detailed analysis and ranking of the top 2 % scientists on self-citation, ranked by Stanford University researchers. Data extraction and organisation were performed between January and February 2024. Self-citation percentages were collected for authors belonging to 20 fields and 174 subfields using Excel spreadsheets. Entities were categorised into quartiles based on their self-citation percentages and rankings were assigned accordingly. Comparative analyses were conducted to assess the impact of self-citations on overall rankings. The study focused on data published by a group of researchers from Stanford University regarding the top 2 % of researchers, analysing the career-long records of 204,643 scholars and 210,198 scholars for the most recent year, 2022. Notably, in the single-year analysis, among the top 20 countries, approximately eight (40 %) exhibited self-citation percentages exceeding the average of 25.96 %. The self-citation percentages ranged from 4.47 % in Economics and Business to 20.88 % in Physics and Astronomy. Regarding career-long analysis, the percentage of self-citations ranged from 22.84 % in Poland to 41.31 % in Armenia, with significant drop in rankings among most entities when self-citations were excluded. These findings highlight the dramatic impact of self-citation exclusion on the rankings of the top 2 % of the researchers, underscoring the critical importance of accounting for self-citation in ranking assessments.