Stanford’s 2 Percent List:  Understanding the Hype and Reality

Peerzada Mohsin Shafi

Every few months social media in Kashmir lights up with the same kind of headline that a professor or researcher from the Valley has been named among the top two percent scientists in the world by Stanford University. Pictures certificates and congratulations follow. Universities issue press notes and newspapers carry the story as if Stanford University itself has selected and honoured the individual. To the common reader it sounds like an international award or a formal endorsement from one of the world’s top universities. Yet the truth is much simpler and far less glamorous.

The so-called Stanford list is not an award not a ranking prepared by the university and not a certificate issued by it. It is a citation database created by a few researchers affiliated with