Which are the best cities for psychology research worldwide? A map visualizing city ratios of observed and expected numbers of highly-cited papers

TL;DR

This study maps global centers of excellence in psychology research by analyzing citation data from 2007, revealing key cities with significantly higher than expected highly-cited papers, mainly in the US, UK, and European countries.

Contribution

It introduces a scientometric approach to identify and visualize cities with outstanding psychology research output based on citation analysis and statistical significance.

Findings

Identifies 214 cities with significant differences in highly-cited papers.

Highlights US and European cities as primary centers of excellence.

Shows increased English-language publication influence in non-English European countries.

Abstract

We present scientometric results about world-wide centers of excellence in psychology. Based on Web of Science data, domain-specific excellence can be identified for cities where highly cited papers are published. Data refer to all psychology articles published in 2007 which are documented in the Social Science Citation Index and to their citation frequencies from 2007 to May 2011. Visualized are 214 cities with an article output of at least 50 in 2007. Statistical z tests are used for the evaluation of the degree to which an observed number of top-cited papers (top-10%) for a city differs from the number expected on the basis of randomness in the selection of papers. Map visualizing city ratios on significant differences between observed and expected numbers of highly-cited papers point at excellence centers in cities at the East and West Coast of the United States as well as in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Australia, and Taiwan. Furthermore, positive but non-significant differences in favor of high citation rates are documented for some cities in the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian and the German-speaking countries, Belgium, France, Spain, Israel, South Korea, and China. Scientometric results show convincingly that highly-cited psychological research articles come from the Anglo-American countries and some of the non-English European countries in which the number of English-language publications has increased during the last decades.