Third Time's a Pattern: World's Top 2% Scientists 2025

I have a confession. When I made the World's Top 2% Scientists list for the first time in 2023, I thought it was a pleasant surprise. When I made it again in 2024, I began to wonder whether the first appearance was more than a lucky coincidence.

Now, in 2025, I have made the list for the third consecutive year.

At this point, I am beginning to suspect that this is becoming a pattern. Not that I am complaining. There are certainly worse things to receive annually in academia. Reviewer comments, for instance.

But this year's recognition came with something I had not experienced in the previous two editions. For the first time, I was included in both the single-year and career-long scientific impact categories.

That distinction made the 2025 results particularly meaningful to me. And, naturally, it gave me another reason to open a spreadsheet.

Three Years, Three Different Numbers

In my previous post about the 2024 list, I shared how my single-year national ranking had moved from 24th in 2023 to 6th in 2024. My global position had also changed considerably, from 80,842nd to 19,441st.

I was already quite happy with those numbers. I certainly did not expect to see another substantial change the following year.

Yet the 2025 edition brought another interesting development.

The Journey So Far: Single-Year Impact

Since I have now appeared in three consecutive editions, I thought it would be useful to continue the little ranking table I started last year. Apparently, this spreadsheet has survived longer than some of my research proposals.

Click the year headings to view my researcher profile for each edition. National ranks refer to the respective Philippine comparison groups.

In the 2025 single-year category, I ranked 4th among 69 researchers nationally and 10,831st globally, with a composite citation score of 3.26.

Looking at the progression from 2023, the numbers are encouraging. My national position has moved from 24th to 6th and now to 4th, while my global position has moved from 80,842nd to 19,441st and then to 10,831st.

Of course, rankings are relative measures. They depend not only on an individual researcher's citation indicators but also on the broader population included in each edition. Moving upward does not necessarily mean that the underlying research suddenly became better. If only research quality could be measured that conveniently, we might finally have fewer arguments about journal rankings.

Nevertheless, I find it reassuring that my work continues to attract scholarly attention across successive editions.

And Then Came the Career-Long List

What made 2025 particularly memorable was discovering that my name had also appeared in the career-long scientific impact category.

For those unfamiliar with the distinction, the single-year category considers citation impact within a particular calendar year, whereas the career-long category considers citation indicators accumulated across a researcher's publishing career. Both use composite indicators that account for more than citation totals alone, including authorship-related measures.

In other words, the two categories offer different perspectives on research impact. One focuses on a recent period of scholarly attention, while the other considers a longer publication history.

And this year, I found myself in both.

The Journey So Far: Career-Long Impact

The 2025 edition marks my first inclusion in the career-long category. Earlier entries are marked "Not listed" rather than zero because I was not included in those career-long datasets.

My first career-long appearance placed me 36th among 44 researchers in the Philippine comparison group and 188,967th globally, with a c-score of 3.07.

Now, I can already imagine someone looking at the two tables and asking why I ranked 4th nationally in one category but 36th in the other.

That is actually a reasonable question.

The two rankings measure different periods of citation impact, and the researchers included in their respective comparison groups are not necessarily the same. A researcher with decades of publications has had considerably more time to accumulate career-long citation indicators than someone whose research career is relatively recent.

Consequently, the career-long ranking should not be interpreted as a direct extension of the single-year ranking, nor should the two positions be compared as though they measure exactly the same thing.

For me, the important development is simply that my accumulated citation indicators have now met the criteria for inclusion in both categories.

It is a different kind of milestone. Not necessarily a bigger one, but certainly one I had been curious about.

When Citations Begin to Tell a Longer Story

One thing I have come to appreciate about research is that its influence does not always follow the timeline we expect.

Some papers attract attention shortly after publication. Others take considerably longer to find their audience. Occasionally, a paper you have almost forgotten about receives a citation, and you find yourself rereading your own work to remember what you argued several years ago.

There is something rather amusing about that. We spend months trying to get a manuscript published, only to discover that its scholarly life may unfold over many more years.

This is partly why the career-long category interests me. It offers another perspective on how published research accumulates attention over time, even though citations alone cannot tell us whether a study has improved educational practice, influenced policy, or changed how someone approaches a problem.

As someone working in educational technology and research, I find that distinction particularly important. A study can receive considerable scholarly attention without necessarily producing meaningful changes in classrooms. Conversely, research that makes a genuine difference to a particular educational community may never accumulate an impressive citation count.

Neither possibility makes citation indicators irrelevant. It simply reminds us that scholarly visibility and practical contribution are related questions, not interchangeable answers.

And perhaps that is a useful perspective to maintain when one's name appears on a list built around citation metrics.

Apparently, Three Is a Pattern

Looking back, I find the progression rather unexpected.

In 2023, I was surprised to make the list. In 2024, I was surprised to make it again. And in 2025, I am surprised not only to return for a third year but also to appear in a second category.

At this rate, I should probably stop being surprised. Although I suspect that would take some of the fun out of it.

I remain grateful to my research collaborators, colleagues, and the scholars who have engaged with our publications. Academic recognition may be presented as an individual achievement, but the work behind it often involves conversations, collaborations, disagreements, and more manuscript revisions than anyone cares to count.

I also recognize that rankings are only one way of looking at a research career. They cannot capture every contribution, and they certainly cannot determine which research questions are worth asking in the first place.

Still, I appreciate this year's recognition, particularly because it marks my first inclusion in the career-long category.

When I wrote my first announcement in 2023, I did not imagine that I would eventually be writing a third installment. Yet here we are, with another table, another poster, and another reason to be thankful.

Will there be a fourth? I suppose we will find out next year.

Once was a surprise. Twice was reassuring. Three times? I think we can officially call this an academic subplot.