Expertise, Citations, the NYTimes
A flashy report gets tripped up by details because experts were not consulted
In a report detailing the effects of the Trump Administration’s attacks on science, the New York Times devoted a large team to create a thorough and slickly produced story tackling multiple angles. Originally published on October 31, it was updated and elevated to the home page again yesterday.
One item in the report jumped out to us old journal codgers, as it deals with rankings of universities and the use of the Impact Factor as a proxy measure of scientific productivity:
By many measures, China is closing the gap with the United States as the world’s research leader. Some organizations that rank global universities show China’s best schools increasingly displacing American universities at the top. And the impact of Chinese research papers, as measured by citations from other scientists, has caught up with the United States, according to Clarivate, a data and analytics company.
- The report linked above about Chinese schools displacing American ones on lists of global rankings is from January 2026.
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