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

Berun A Abdalla; Ayman M Mustafa; Fattah H Fattah; Fahmi H Kakamad; Sami S Omar; Ameer M Salih; Aso S Muhialdeen; Jaafar Omer Ahmed; Rawa Bapir; Shvan H Mohammed; Karokh K Mohammed; Hiwa O Baba; Sasan M Ahmed; Shevan M Mustafa; Kayhan A Najar

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42471

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

Heliyon. 2025 Feb 5;11(3):e42471. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42471. eCollection 2025 Feb 15.

Authors

Berun A Abdalla^{1

2}, Ayman M Mustafa¹, Fattah H Fattah^{1

3}, Fahmi H Kakamad^{1

2

3}, Sami S Omar^{2

4}, Ameer M Salih^{1

5}, Aso S Muhialdeen^{1

2}, Jaafar Omer Ahmed^{2

6}, Rawa Bapir^{1

2

7}, Shvan H Mohammed², Karokh K Mohammed^{1

2}, Hiwa O Baba^{1

2}, Sasan M Ahmed^{1

2}, Shevan M Mustafa², Kayhan A Najar^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Smart Health Tower, Madam Mitterrand Street, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq.
² Kscien Organization, Hamdi Street, Azadi Mall, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq.
³ College of Medicine, University of Sulaimani, Madam Mitterrand Street, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq.
⁴ Rizgary Oncology Center, Peshawa Qazi Street, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq.
⁵ Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Sulaimani, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq.
⁶ Psychology Department, Faculty of Art, Soran University, Soran, Iraq.
⁷ Department of Urology, Sulaymaniyah Surgical Teaching Hospital, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan, Iraq.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Citation analysis; Impact factor; Scientific publishing; Self-citation.