Which cities produce excellent papers worldwide more than can be expected? A new mapping approach--using Google Maps--based on statistical significance testing

The methods presented in this paper allow for a statistical analysis revealing centers of excellence around the world using programs that are freely available. Based on Web of Science data, field-specific excellence can be identified in cities where highly-cited papers were published significantly. Compared to the mapping approaches published hitherto, our approach is more analytically oriented by allowing the assessment of an observed number of excellent papers for a city (in the sample) against the expected number. Using this test, the approach cannot only identify the top performers in output but the “true jewels.” These are cities locating authors who publish significantly more top cited papers than can be expected. As the examples in this paper show for physics, chemistry, and psychology, these cities do not necessarily have a high output of excellent papers.

💡 Research Summary

The paper introduces a statistically grounded mapping technique that identifies cities worldwide where researchers publish significantly more highly‑cited papers than would be expected given their overall output. Using Web of Science data, the authors first define “excellent papers” as those in the top 10 % of citations within a specific field (physics, chemistry, or psychology). For each city they count the total number of papers (N) and the number of excellent papers (O). The expected number of excellent papers (E) is calculated as N × p, where p is the overall proportion of excellent papers in the field. By treating the occurrence of excellent papers as a binomial process and applying a normal approximation, they compute a z‑score: (O – E) / √