In a groundbreaking achievement, the Materials Science discipline at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) has been ranked among the world’s top 1‰ disciplines, according to the latest Essential Science Indicators (ESI) data released by Clarivate Analytics on January 11.

This marks a significant milestone as SUSTech’s Materials Science discipline enters the Top 1‰ of disciplines globally based on ESI metrics.

The ESI ranking is based on citation statistics covering the period from January 2013 to August 2023. For its Materials Science discipline, SUSTech has published 4,403 SCI papers, accumulating an impressive 117,960 citations and boasting 132 highly cited papers, located in the top 0.985‰ of the ESI worldwide.

The Materials Science discipline holds the distinction of being authorized as the first-level master’s and doctoral degree-conferring units, while also offering two undergraduate majors: Materials Science and Engineering and Electronic and Photonic Materials and Devices.

Recognized as a national first-class undergraduate major construction site and a first-class undergraduate major construction site in Guangdong Province, it received approval as a postdoctoral research mobile station in materials science and engineering in October 2023.

At the forefront of electronic information materials, energy and environmental materials, and biological and medical materials, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) at SUSTech has focused on material genomes based on advanced manufacturing, characterization, and computational methods.

With over 3,000 publications in academic journals such as Nature, Science, and Advanced Materials, the Department of MSE holds numerous invention patents and has received a series of prestigious scientific research awards. These accolades include the Qiushi Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Qiushi Science and Technology Foundation, the Xplorer Prize from the New Cornerstone Science Foundation, and the Ferroelectrics Recognition Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

SUSTech has 11 disciplines within the top 1% of the ESI ranking data list: Chemistry, Materials Science, Engineering, Clinical Medicine, Environment/Ecology, Physics, Geosciences, Computer Science, Biology & Biochemistry, Plant & Animal Science, and Molecular Biology & Genetics.

The ESI is an analytical tool that helps identify top-performing research based on the Web of Science Core Collection. ESI surveys more than 12,000 journals worldwide indexed by SCI and SSCI in a rolling 10-year period to rank authors, institutions, countries, and journals in 22 broad fields based on publication and citation performance. It has become an important indicator for evaluating the international academic level and influence of academic institutions and universities.