All papers in the survey—including articles, notes, reviews, and proceedings; excluding meeting abstracts, corrections, letters to the editor, and other miscellanies—were published in ISI-indexed journals between 1992 and August 2002 and were cited during the same period.

Science Watch then identified institutions whose published papers in molecular biology and genetics collectively garnered at least 50,000 citations during the decade. The 37 institutions meeting that threshold are listed on the following page, ranked according to total citations. (Each listing also contains the institution’s publication count, as well as its citations per paper, or impact). 

This survey also identified each institution’s number and percentage of highly cited reports (highly cited is defined as a paper that ranks in the top 1% by citations for papers in the same field and of the same year). The table on the following page ranks the 15 institutions (among those in the survey’s 50,000-cites-and-up club) that saw the largest percentages of their molecular biology and genetics papers reach the top-1% rung in citations. In the case of Cold Spring Harbor Lab, the Salk Institute, and others, smaller size proved to be no handicap in producing a high proportion of superstar papers.