The global professional information services company, Clarivate, unveiled the most recent statistical data for the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database in May. This update marks a significant milestone for the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) as its Material Science subject has entered ESI’s prestigious global top 1% subject list for the first time.
Up to now, UNNC has four subjects-Economics and Business, Engineering, Materials Science, and Social Sciences, General-ranked in the top 1% of global rankings of ESI, spanning across the university’s three faculties. The number of subjects listed ranks second among Sino-foreign universities.
The global ranking of Engineering has shown remarkable progress, moving from 1% in 2019 to 0.5% in 2021, and most recently landing at 0.24% in 2024, depicting a consistent and substantial improvement over time. Moreover, the global ranking of Economics and Business has advanced to 0.88%, while the ranking of Social Sciences General has entered the 0.46% threshold. UNNC has demonstrated steady advancement by climbing 155 places in the global ranking in all-filed compared to the previous period, underscoring its continuous growth and impact.
Since its establishment, UNNC has adhered to the international standards of the University of Nottingham, recruiting faculty and academic staff globally. Currently, 100% of the academic staff have teaching or research experience at top international universities, and around 60% are foreign nationals. Furthermore, a significant number of these academic professionals have been recognised among the 'World’s top 2% scientists' and 'highly cited scholars’.
Led and propelled by these accomplished academics, the university's subjects and scientific research experience consistent high-quality advancement. Insights from the SciVal database (2020-2024) revealed that the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) of Materials Science publications at UNNC achieved a notable 1.64, aligning with esteemed global institutions such as Caltech, UCL, and Cambridge. Impressively, 35.9% of the publications are published in the world's top 10% journals, and 18.2% were listed in the top 10% most-cited worldwide.
ESI is a quantitative analysis database based on more than 12 million literature records of more than 11,000 academic journals around the world, including the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index. It covers 22 broad fields and is one of the most important evaluation index tools to effectively analyse and benchmark research performance, identify significant trends, rank top performers, and evaluate potential employees and collaborators.