The research field of Social Sciences (General) at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) ranks internationally in the top 1% in terms of quality, according to the latest statistical data of Essential Science Indicators (ESI) released by Clarivate. Following the engineering discipline, this is UNNC’s second discipline has entered the 1% ranking of ESI.
The ESI database is based on statistics drawn from more than 12 million articles in more than 12,000 journals from around the world, to deliver the in-depth coverage to effectively analyse and benchmark research performance, identify significant trends, rank top performers, and evaluate potential employees and collaborators. Discipline ranking in the top 1% of ESI is generally regarded as an international high-level discipline.
The engineering discipline at UNNC is now ranked in the top 0.5%, which indicates that the academic influence of our university's engineering discipline is equivalent to that of international first-class universities. It is also a breakthrough achievement in the construction of the engineering science discipline.
According to data from Clarivate, the papers that UNNC has published in the field of "Engineering" have average citations per paper of 13.51, higher than the world average of 10.17, with over half published in world top 10% journals, 73% on top 25% journals, equivalent to the level of world class universities.
Currently, UNNC has two provincial key laboratories and three municipal key laboratories in the engineering discipline. The disciplines of materials sciences and engineering and chemical engineering have been selected as first-class disciplines of Zhejiang Province, mechanical engineering selected as provincial key discipline, and multiple courses have been rated as key disciplines of Ningbo City.
Recently, UNNC entered the ESI’s world top 1% in the discipline of Social Sciences (General), being one of the 64 Chinese universities. It refers to the overall scientific research achievements of all social science disciplines in a university, covering a wide range of subjects including humanities and social sciences, engineering, medicine, and management, amongst others.
Under the category of Social Sciences (General), UNNC has published 230 papers, with average citations per paper of 7.67. Among them, a paper on “sponge city” in China written by Dr Faith Chan et al was the most frequently cited. In addition, Professor Martin Liu’s study on digital innovation, Dr Yangyang Jiang’s research of the effects of COVID-19 on hotel marketing and management, and Dr Balaji Makam’s study on travelers' propensity to choose green hotels were all listed among “Top Papers”.
In recent years, the University has attached great importance to the construction of humanities and social sciences, promoting the development of disciplines, talent introduction and platform construction, and achieved a series of phased results.
Earlier, the research base on Dual Circulation and Economic Development and research base on Internationalising Ningbo’s Screen Industries of UNNC were selected and approved respectively in the category of “Development” and “Cultivation” of the Ningbo Social Science Research Base, providing new platforms for UNNC to further social sciences research and to contribute to the economic and social development of Ningbo.
In addition, according to the distribution of the ESI Top Papers, many of them are from the research of UNNC doctoral students, which shows the outstanding quality of doctoral education at UNNC.