The number of publications from AIMS Research Centres is rising strongly, in correspondence to the overall growth AIMS has experienced in recent years.
The figure below illustrates this growth from 2010 until 2014. During this period the output has grown by an average factor of 1.8 per year. Between 20% to 30% of the scientific output is from visiting researchers.
AIMS publications per year (non-cumulative)
Top 10 researchers that have worked at AIMS
The number of publications, citations and h-index are based upon their total research output during their career.
| Name (* still at AIMS) | Nationality | Position | Number of publications | Number of citations | h-index |
| Romeel Davé* | American | Research Chair |
143 |
7911 |
48 |
|
Bruce Bassett* |
South African | Senior Resident Researcher |
98 |
8446 |
39 |
| Martin Kunz* | Swiss/German | Visiting Professor |
149 |
3352 |
32 |
| Roberto Trotta | Italian | Research Fellow |
72 |
2127 |
28 |
| Douw G. Steyn | South African | Senior Visiting Researcher |
88 |
1853 |
26 |
| Delfim F.M. Torres | Portugese |
Researcher |
171 |
2044 |
24 |
| Cang Hui | Chinese | Research Chair |
95 |
1122 |
18 |
| Ignacy Sawicki | Polish | Visiting | 23 | 1775 | 14 |
| Alan F. Beardon | British | Senior Resident Researcher |
65 |
280 |
9 |
| Ronald I. Becker | South African | Senior Resident Researcher |
32 |
195 |
9 |
Source: Technopolis 2015, Scopus
Citations
As the output of papers by AIMS has been rising, so has the cumulative number of citations AIMS’ papers have received (1624 on 30 June 2015). The indicator of interest though is the average number of citations per paper, which is 7 citations per paper. Another key indicator is the h-index, which is 19. This indicates that AIMS researchers have published 19 documents that have been cited at least 19 times.
Key citation figures
| Number of citations | Citations per paper | Percentage with no citations | Percentage with no citations until 2014 | h-index |
| 1624 | 7 | 50% | 33% | 19 |
Source: Technopolis 2015, Scopus
Top 5 cited papers
| AIMS
researcher |
Paper | # |
| M. Kunz | Ade, P. A. R., Aghanim, N., Armitage-Caplan, C., Arnaud, M., Ashdown, M., Atrio- Barandela, F., … & Davies, R. D. (2014). Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parametres. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 571, A16. |
304 |
| P.G.
Ferreira |
Skordis, C., Mota, D. F., Ferreira, P. G., & Boehm, C. (2006). Large scale structure in Bekenstein’s theory of relativistic modified Newtonian dynamics. Physical Review Letters, 96(1), 011301. |
113 |
| P.G.
Ferreira; K. Moodley |
Dunkley, J., Bucher, M., Ferreira, P. G., Moodley, K., & Skordis, C. (2005). Fast and reliable Markov chain Monte Carlo technique for cosmological parametre estimation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 356(3), 925-936. |
105 |
| M. Kunz | Ade, P. A. R., Aghanim, N., Armitage-Caplan, C., Arnaud, M., Ashdown, M., Atrio- Barandela, F., … & De Bernardis, P. (2014). Planck 2013 results. XXII. Constraints on inflation. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 571, A22. |
103 |
| P.G.
Ferreira |
Zlosnik, T. G., Ferreira, P. G., & Starkman, G. D. (2006). Vector-tensor nature of Bekenstein’s relativistic theory of modified gravity. Physical Review D, 74(4), 044037. | 47 |
Source: Technopolis 2015, Scopus
Journals
The Source Normalised Impact per Paper (SNIP) is a comparative indicator of the impact of journals. SNIP is the ratio of a source’s average citation count per paper and the citation potential of its subject field. A SNIP value that is higher than one means that the journal has an above average SNIP for its field. A SNIP that is lower than one means that the journal has a below average SNIP for its field. If SNIP is equal to 1, the journal is absolutely average for its field.
Impact factors for the top 5 journals with most AIMS publications
| Journal | Number of publication | SNIP 2004 – 2014 | SNIP 2014 |
|
Astronomy and Astrophysics |
50 |
1.22 |
0.95 |
| Astrophysical Journal | 17 | 1.53 | 1.19 |
| Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics | 15 | 0.88 | 0.97 |
| Physical Review D – Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology | 15 |
1.36 |
1.16 |
| Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 14 |
1.35 |
1.33 |
AIMS has published 111 papers in these journals which constitutes 47% of all publications. The AIMS researchers mostly publish in journals with an above average impact factor.
Network Analysis
A network analysis maps the countries and institutions the AIMS researchers co-publish its papers with. The figure shows that they work mostly with institutes in South Africa, US, Canada and Europe. In Europe they mostly co-publish with researchers from the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Italy
Top 10 institutes in terms of co-publications
| Institute | Number of co-publications | Country |
| Université de Genève | 70 | Switzerland |
| Niels Bohr Institute | 53 | Denmark |
| University of California, Santa Barbara | 52 | United States |
| University of Cambridge | 52 | United Kingdom |
| Princeton University | 51 | United States |
| Imperial College London | 51 | United Kingdom |
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | 49 | United States |
| Helsingin Yliopisto | 48 | Finland |
| CEA Saclay | 48 | France |
| CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique | 47 | France |
Source: Technopolis 2015, Scopus
In addition to the above top 10 institutes AIMS co-publishes with, AIMS works together with many African institutes as well. The figure below shows the top 5 African institutes in terms of co-publications, which are all South African institutes. The only other African institute that is not in South Africa that AIMS co-published with frequently (17 papers) is Universite de Yaounde I in Cameroon
Top 5 African institutes in terms of co-publications
| Institute | Number of co-publications | Country |
| University of KwaZulu-Natal | 41 | South Africa |
| University of Cape Town | 33 | South Africa |
| Universiteit Stellenbosch | 32 | South Africa |
| South African Astronomical Observatory | 26 | South Africa |
| University of the Western Cape | 26 | South Africa |
Benchmark with other African institutes
AIMS is in the top 20 academic institutions in Africa for weighted research outputs on the Nature Index list.