Field rankings for Australia

	Field	Papers	Citations	Citations per paper	World average	% +/–
1	Space science	5,158	96,242	18.66	13.77	+36
2%3D	Mathematics	6,020	25,625	4.26	3.24	+31
2%3D	Geosciences	13,259	158,347	11.94	9.12	+31
3	Environment/ecology	12,540	155,242	12.38	10.36	+20
4%3D	Engineering	17,677	90,437	5.12	4.29	+19
4%3D	Plant/animal sciences	26,669	232,547	8.72	7.31	+19
5	Physics	14,621	144,406	9.88	8.62	+15
6	Clinical medicine	63,589	899,131	14.14	12.36	+14
7	Agricultural sciences	7,748	57,203	7.38	6.54	+13
8%3D	Microbiology	4,850	83,096	17.13	15.	+12
8%3D	Chemistry	18,446	212,479	11.52	10.33	+12
9%3D	Materials science	7,659	52,084	6.80	6.23	+9
9%3D	Computer science	6,823	24,754	3.63	3.34	+9
10	Pharmacology	3,904	48,467	12.41	11.52	+8
11	Biochemistry	15,420	1,816	17.63	16.67	+6
12	Immunology	4,894	104,509	21.35	21.04	+1
13%3D	Molecular biology	7,265	180,373	24.83	25.10	–1
13%3D	Social sciences	18,175	78,098	4.30	4.35	–1
14	Psychiatry/psychology	11,317	108,171	9.56	10.45	–9
15	Neuroscience	7,957	129,999	16.34	18.62	–12
16	Economics/business	6,549	26,815	4.09	5.52	–26

The data above were extracted from the Essential Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters. The database, currently covering the period January 1999 through October 2009, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Reuters. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and the journal-to-category field-definition scheme used by Thomson Reuters. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated.

Australia ranks tenth in output, tenth in citations received and 16th in citations per paper (among nations publishing 50,000 or more papers during the period) across the science and social science fields surveyed

by Essential Science Indicators. The table above ranks fields for Australia by relative citation impact, that is, citations per paper for Australia in a field compared with the world’s citations per paper score in the same field. Australia’s percentage above or below the world average is presented in the column at far right. Exceptional areas of strength, according to this measure, are space science, mathematics and geosciences.

For more information, see: http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/products/esi