Prof. Meththika Vithanage from the Ecosphere Resilience Research Center, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura has been named on the annual Highly Cited Researchers™ 2021 list from Clarivate.
Prof. Vithanage is the current head of the Ecosphere Resilience Research Centre, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. Her academic background covers environmental remediation of toxic metals, antibiotics, agrochemicals, serpentine soil chemistry, and waste biomass conversion. As a researcher she has won many national and international level awards for her research work. Few weeks back her name was listed among the worlds’ top 2% of the researchers according to the list published by Stanford University and Elsevier BV. She is also one of the most active science communicators in Sri Lanka who campaigns fearlessly about the scientific topics that are of national interest. She additionally contributed to 2 Korean patents and 1 Sri Lankan patent for environmental remediation of antibiotics using biochar and synthesis of nanozero valent iron. She serves as a Visiting Associate Research Professor at the National Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy. That was the birth place for her research career.
According to Web of Science data, Prof. Vithanage has 175 publications with over 8000 citations. She currently has an H-Index of 42.
Even for a highly recognized researcher like Prof. Vithanage, doing research in Sri Lanka is not an easy task, she runs her laboratories in a few containers due to limited support and grants from the responsible bodies. Speaking to us Prof. Vithanage states, “we put in a huge effort to finish a research project with high-quality novel findings so that we can publish those data in high impact journals. We spend 24×7 time on research and publications, sometimes for weeks. If we publish in top-quality journals, we will be cited more. My citation count has now passed 11,000, which means my research has been cited that many times in research articles from all over the world.”
“Most of the time, we do not have the necessary equipment and software for high quality research, so we rely on our collaborators. But most unfortunately, whatever the data we produce and give guidelines for after so much effort, the local stakeholders are not willing to use them, and at the same time, there is no political will to recognize the need for research for national development, so the funds are lacking. Decision makers think that research is not needed and that it is possible to do product development right-away, which is not sustainable. You really need research to produce a high-quality product or service.”
The highly anticipated annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index.
The methodology that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these citation elite are based.
- This year’s list includes 24 Nobel laureates, including five announced this year. Also included are 77 Citation Laureates™: individuals recognized by Clarivate, through citation analysis, as ‘of Nobel class’ and potential Nobel Prize recipients.
- Some truly extraordinary Highly Cited Researchers appear in more than one Essential Science Indicators (ESI)™ field. Of the researchers named as Highly Cited in the 21 ESI fields, 23 researchers showed exceptional broad performance, recognized for being highly cited in three or more fields. They are a truly global group – in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
David Pendlebury, Senior Citation Analyst at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate said: “It is increasingly important for nations and institutions to recognize and support the exceptional researchers who are driving the expansion of the world’s knowledge. This list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers across the globe who are having a significant impact on the research community as evidenced by the rate at which their work is being cited by their peers. The research they have contributed is fueling the innovation, sustainability, health and security that is key for our society’s future.”
The full 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary can be found online here.
