Recently, the team led by John P.A. Ioannidis of Stanford University, in collaboration with Elsevier, released the 2026 World's Top 2% Scientists List. The list consists of two categories: the Career-Long Scientific Impact Ranking and the Single-Year Scientific Impact Ranking. A total of 31 scholars from Zhengzhou University of Light Industry (ZZULI) have made the list, with eight featuring on both rankings. Eight faculty members, namely Liu Jiande, Du Miao, Liu Chunsen, He Linghao, Fang Shaoming, Xu Chunping, Zhang Zhihong and Sun Junwei, are included in the Career-Long Scientific Impact Ranking, marking a new record in the number of selections. Thirty-one faculty members including Wang Yanfeng, Bai Yanhong and Zhang Yonghui have been named on the Single-Year Scientific Impact Ranking.
Based on the Top-Cited Scientists Database built from all Scopus author profiles, the ranking list comprehensively evaluates scientists' long-term research performance and academic influence using six key metrics, including total citations (with and without self-citations, with self-citation counts provided), the H-index, the Hm-index, and citations to single or first-author papers. Covering fields across the humanities, sciences and engineering, it categorizes scientists into 20 major fields and 174 subfields. It is widely regarded as an important international reference for measuring scientists' research output and scientific impact. Among them, the Career-Long Scientific Impact Ranking measures scientists' cumulative scientific performance throughout their careers, while the Single-Year Scientific Impact Ranking focuses on scientific impact in the previous calendar year.
Committed to the talent-driven strategy for development, ZZULI continuously improves the recruitment, cultivation and research support system for high-level talents, strengthens basic research and fosters the delivery of high-quality original achievements. The selection of multiple scholars this time not only recognizes the academic achievements of our researchers, but also epitomizes ZZULI's improved capacity for basic research, steadily growing disciplinary strength, and remarkable outcomes in talent development. ZZULI will further consolidate the foundation for basic research, strengthen its research talent echelon, produce more high-quality research outcomes, and provide solid scientific, technological and talent support for its high-quality development.