Mapping the paths of highly cited researchers: a comprehensive look at the 2023 cross-field distribution

The Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) are the subject of an annual list published by a commercial company that garners interest from universities worldwide. The list features 21 disciplinary categories under which HCR researchers are classified and a cross-field category that highlights individuals who publish papers with high citations in multiple disciplines. Unfortunately, the published Cross-Field list lacks data that would allow for a proper assessment of the distribution among different disciplines and analysis of their thematic similarities, as Klein and Kranke (Scientometrics 128: 6773–6780, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04852-w) recently noted. To address this shortcoming, we searched for the highly cited papers (Top 1%) authored by the approximately 3300 Cross-Field researchers on the 2023 list. We present their distribution across disciplines and use principal component analysis to demonstrate the associations between ESI Fields in the clustering of the Cross-Field Highly Cited Researchers. The study shows that cross-field researchers demonstrate the same citation levels to their highly cited papers as members of the HCR list in specific ESI areas. In contrast, they demonstrate lower levels of collaboration in producing highly cited papers. We have also documented striking differences among ESI disciplines in balancing the short- and long-term impact of the highly cited papers associated with HCRs, regardless of whether researchers belong to ESI categories or cross-field.