Top Scientists in Social Sciences (2026)
Explore scientists classified in Social Sciences in the 2026 single-year ranking, with global rankings, institutions, countries and historical representation.
Historical Listings
2020–2026 · Both ranking typesDisciplines with Similar Representation
Closest scientist counts listed in 2026 Single-year dataset.
Top 10 Scientists in Social Sciences
2026 · Single-year| Field position | Worldwide | Scientist | c-score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 59 |  Sweller, John UNSW Sydney, Australia | 4.69 |
| 2 | 61 |  Mayer, Richard E. University of California, Santa Barbara, United States of America | 4.68 |
| 3 | 94 |  Braun, Virginia University of Auckland, New Zealand | 4.60 |
| 4 | 95 |  Geels, Frank W. Alliance Manchester Business School, United Kingdom | 4.58 |
| 5 | 105 |  Bentler, Peter M. University of California, Los Angeles, United States of America | 4.57 |
| 6 | 130 |  Pekrun, Reinhard H. Australian Catholic University, Australia | 4.52 |
| 7 | 175 |  Marsh, Herbert W. Australian Catholic University, Australia | 4.45 |
| 8 | 202 | Zimmerman, Barry J. City University, United States of America | 4.41 |
| 9 | 219 |  CHIU, Thomas K.F. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong | 4.40 |
| 10 | 233 |  Sunstein, Cass R. Harvard Law School, United States of America | 4.37 |
Top 10 Institutions in Social Sciences
Number of listed scientists by recorded affiliation.
Top 10 Countries in Social Sciences
Number of listed scientists by country.
How to Interpret These Figures
The Social Sciences grouping follows the broad Science-Metrix field recorded in the underlying bibliometric dataset. Counts refer to scientists listed in the 2026 single-year dataset, not to all researchers working in the field.
Discipline position is derived from the number of listed scientists across the 20 fields. It is not an official ranking of disciplinary quality. Country figures reflect recorded affiliations, not citizenship. Institution names may have variants; historical changes may also reflect changes in dataset coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers about Social Sciences based on the 2026 single-year ranking data.
6,698 researcher records are classified under Social Sciences in the 2026 single-year dataset. This is not a census of everyone conducting research in the field.
Social Sciences is positioned #11 when broad disciplines are ordered by their listed researcher counts in the selected dataset. This is not a ranking of disciplinary quality or scientific importance.
The Top 10 Institutions and Top 10 Countries charts show where listed researchers classified under Social Sciences are most frequently associated in the selected dataset. These figures represent researcher counts, not comparisons of institutional or national research quality.
The page uses the broad Science-Metrix field recorded in the underlying Scopus-derived ranking dataset. This classification should not be interpreted as a complete description of a researcher’s expertise or interdisciplinary work.
Both views can be explored, but they summarize citation impact over different timeframes. Their counts and positions should not be treated as directly interchangeable measures of disciplinary performance.
Use the Browse all scientists link on this page to explore researcher records filtered by Social Sciences, 2026, and the selected single-year ranking.