Top Scientists in New Zealand (2026)
Explore researchers affiliated with institutions in New Zealand who appear in the 2026 single-year World's Top 2% Scientists dataset.
Historical listings in New Zealand
Annual numbers of listed scientists.
Countries with similar listing totals
Closest by the number of scientists listed in 2026 single-year dataset.
Top 10 Researchers in New Zealand
Ordered by original worldwide rank in the 2026 single-year dataset.
| New Zealand | Worldwide | Researcher | Discipline | c-score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 94 |
Braun, Virginia
University of Auckland |
Social Sciences | 4.60 |
| 2 | 191 |
Trenberth, Kevin E.
University of Auckland |
Earth & Environmental Sciences | 4.43 |
| 3 | 237 |
Feigin, Valery L.
Auckland University of Technology |
Clinical Medicine | 4.37 |
| 4 | 274 |
Hall, C. Michael
Massey University Auckland |
Economics & Business | 4.34 |
| 5 | 293 |
Zhu, Fan
University of Auckland |
Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry | 4.33 |
| 6 | 791 |
Boretti, Alberto A.
Independent Scientist |
Enabling & Strategic Technologies | 4.10 |
| 7 | 937 |
Anderson, Marti J.
Massey University Auckland |
Biology | 4.06 |
| 8 | 1,035 |
Visser, Matt
Victoria University of Wellington |
Physics & Astronomy | 4.04 |
| 9 | 1,079 |
Hulme, Philip E.
Lincoln University |
Biology | 4.03 |
| 10 | 1,498 |
Phillips, Peter C.B.
University of Auckland |
Economics & Business | 3.95 |
Top 10 Institutions in New Zealand
Number of listed scientists by recorded affiliation.
Top 10 Disciplines in New Zealand
Number of listed scientists by Science-Metrix broad field.
How to interpret these rankings
These pages present scientists associated with New Zealand in the 2026 single-year dataset. Country refers to the affiliation country recorded in the source data, not necessarily citizenship or nationality. Worldwide rank is taken from the dataset; country positions and institution totals are calculations made by this website.
Country position is based on the number of listed scientists, not an official assessment of national research quality. Institution counts use distinct nonblank affiliation names as recorded, so variants of the same institutional name may be counted separately. Historical changes describe representation in successive datasets and should not be interpreted as direct changes in research quality.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers about New Zealand based on the 2026 single-year ranking data.
971 researcher records are associated with New Zealand in the 2026 single-year dataset. This is a count of listed researchers, not of all scientists working in the country.
Countries are ordered by their number of listed researcher records in the selected 2026 single-year dataset. The resulting position does not measure overall research quality, productivity, or national scientific capacity.
The Top 10 Institutions and Top 10 Disciplines charts show the most frequently represented institution names and disciplinary classifications among the listed researchers associated with New Zealand. These are counts of researchers, not institutional or disciplinary quality scores.
The selected dataset contains 142 distinct nonblank institution names for New Zealand. Differences in institutional naming may cause the same organization to appear under more than one name.
You can examine both views, but they reflect different citation-impact periods. A difference in counts or positions should not be interpreted as a direct change in research performance without considering the ranking methodology and data coverage.
Use the Browse all scientists link on this page to view researcher records filtered by New Zealand, 2026, and the selected single-year ranking.