Seven Czech experts among the top 1% of the world’s most cited researchers
Seven experts from Czechia have been ranked among the top one percent of the world’s most cited scientists, according to the Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list by Clarivate. The list includes ecologist and botanist Petr Pyšek and physicist Tomáš Jungwirth, who was recently honoured with Czechia’s most prestigious scientific award, Czech Head.
This year’s list of the world’s most cited scientists, compiled by the British-American analytics company Clarivate, features 6,636 researchers from over 1,200 institutions in 59 countries and regions. It is based on an analysis of scientific publications from 2013 to 2023 and the number of citations these works have received in Web-of-Science-indexed journals.
Among the seven Czech experts is physicist Tomáš Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics at the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is a global authority in spintronics, a field that merges physics, electronics, and the properties of electron spin.
In recent years, Mr. Jungwirth has focused on research into antiferromagnetic spintronics and has discovered a previously unknown class of magnets called altermagnets. He explained to Radio Prague the significance of this research:
“There are many various research directions in physics where having a new type of magnet really opens completely new research directions and possibilities, and this is for us the most exciting aspect of this identification.
“But maybe for the general public, it's easier to explain the potential—not immediate—but the potential consequences of this for microelectronics. And it's because they can combine the favourable characteristics of the two earlier known types of magnets for making, in particular, integrated circuits of magnetic memories or magnetic processors that can have a much higher density of bit integration.”
“In the research of physics itself, there are many materials that have some sort of magnetic behaviour. Now, if instead of having two basic classes [of magnetism] you have three, it really opens many new opportunities.”
Another expert on the list is Petr Pyšek from the Czech Institute of Botany, one of the leading experts on invasive species. He has appeared on the prestigious list for ten consecutive years. Mr. Pyšek studies how and why invasive plant species spread, what factors influence the process, and the impact of these invasions on nature and people.
In an earlier interview with Radio Prague International, he emphasized the importance of addressing this issue:
“A lot has been said over the past years about the IPBES biodiversity report. And invasions are just part of the global biodiversity problem. If the majority of the public are aware of it, they can push on politicians and things can change.
“In many countries, there are very strong citizen-science movements which involve people in monitoring and recording, which is quite easy these days with advanced technological tools like smartphones. So this is really important in terms of the early warning and early monitoring systems.”
Other Czech scientists on the list include Petr Neužil, head of the Cardiology Department at Prague's Na Homolce Hospital and an expert in treating cardiac arrhythmias, along with his colleague Vivek Y. Reddy.
The list also features environmental microbiologist Petr Baldrián, molecular biologist Dmitri Chudakov, and Jan Pergl, another expert on invasive species.
