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Subfield · Engineering

General Engineering research

General Engineering is a subfield of Engineering. Science Explorer counts 28k research works in it since 1951. 9.5% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: applied science.

Research works
28k
fractional, since 1951
In the world top 10%
2.6k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.5%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
1
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+4%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
82% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
General Engineering

Which countries lead General Engineering research?

On research quality in 2022-now, China rank highest in General Engineering. By volume, China and Japan publish the most (1.2k and 51 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 China #1 all time 1.09× excellence · 1.04× journals · 100% breadth 11.0% top 10% · 1.2k works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 1 countries ranked in General Engineering. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in General Engineering

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.2k works
  2. 2 Japan 51 works
  3. 3 India 48 works
  4. 4 Indonesia 42 works
  5. 5 United States 41 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 26 works
  7. 7 ?? 22 works
  8. 8 Australia 20 works
  9. 9 Russia 18 works
  10. 10 Germany 14 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 81.6%Japan: 3.4%India: 3.1%Indonesia: 2.7%6 others listed: 9.2%82%largest
China1,250 · 81.6%Japan51 · 3.4%India48 · 3.1%Indonesia42 · 2.7%6 others listed141 · 9.2%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead General Engineering research?

Southwest Jiaotong University (China) ranks first in General Engineering on research quality in 2022-now, followed by .

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Southwest Jiaotong University China · Chengdu · #2 all time 24.6% top 10% · 85 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 1 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in General Engineering.

Top 100 General Engineering institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Southwest Jiaotong UniversityChina 87 works
  2. 2 Tongji UniversityChina 52 works
  3. 3 Central South UniversityChina 43 works
  4. 4 Beijing Jiaotong UniversityChina 40 works
  5. 5 China Railway Group (China)China 37 works
  6. 6 Lanzhou Jiaotong UniversityChina 25 works
  7. 7 China Academy of Railway SciencesChina 22 works
  8. 8 China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 20 works
  9. 9 Merchants Chongqing Communications Research and Design InstituteChina 19 works
  10. 10 Chang'an UniversityChina 18 works

Who are the leading researchers in General Engineering?

Counting only their work in General Engineering, Wanming Zhai, David Thompson and Geert Degrande have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Wanming Zhai China · #49,920 worldwide overall 26.0 of 48 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 David Thompson United Kingdom · #1,553,725 worldwide overall 21.7 of 42 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Geert Degrande Belgium · #1,321,739 worldwide overall 16.1 of 45 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Xuesong Jin China · #381,367 worldwide overall 13.3 of 31 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 David P. Connolly United Kingdom · #104,833 worldwide overall 11.3 of 22 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Yunmin Chen China · #405,087 worldwide overall 12.4 of 30 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Shengyang Zhu China · #91,965 worldwide overall 10.2 of 17 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Xuecheng Bian China · #122,379 worldwide overall 9.7 of 19 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Zefeng Wen China · #582,533 worldwide overall 11.9 of 24 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Georges Kouroussis Belgium · #975,765 worldwide overall 13.0 of 20 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in General Engineering alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 65,842 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 General Engineering researchers

What are the most cited papers in General Engineering?

The most cited paper in General Engineering is "Fundamentals of vehicle–track coupled dynamics" (Wanming Zhai, Kaiyun Wang, Chengbiao Cai, 2009), with 973 citations. Next come "Modelling of Railway Track and Vehicle/Track Interaction at High Frequencies" (678) and "Observational Procedure of Settlement Prediction" (597).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Fundamentals of vehicle–track coupled dynamics Wanming Zhai, Kaiyun Wang, Chengbiao Cai · Vehicle System Dynamics 3 Mar 2009 973
2 Modelling of Railway Track and Vehicle/Track Interaction at High Frequencies Kl. Knothe, Stuart L. Grassie · Vehicle System Dynamics 1993 678
3 Observational Procedure of Settlement Prediction Akira Asaoka · SOILS AND FOUNDATIONS Dec 1978 597
4 STUDY ON ROCK MECHANICS IN DEEP MINING ENGINEERING Yaodong Jiang · Chinese journal of rock mechanics and engineering 2005 554
5 HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY LINES ON SOFT GROUND: DYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR AT CRITICAL TRAIN SPEED Christian Madshus, Amir Massoud Kaynia · Journal of Sound and Vibration Mar 2000 431
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is General Engineering research done?

The largest centres of General Engineering research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Chengdu (China), Shanghai (China) and Changsha (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Xuzhou, Lanzhou and Chengdu.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 267 works
  2. 2 ChengduChina 108 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 102 works
  4. 4 ChangshaChina 57 works
  5. 5 WuhanChina 51 works
  6. 6 ChongqingChina 51 works
  7. 7 Xi'anChina 48 works
  8. 8 NanjingChina 40 works
  9. 9 GuangzhouChina 39 works
  10. 10 LanzhouChina 37 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. XuzhouCN · 20.6 works13×
  2. LanzhouCN · 37.0 works11×
  3. ChengduCN · 107.8 works9.7×
  4. NanchangCN · 24.1 works8.1×
  5. ChongqingCN · 50.6 works7.2×
  6. ChangshaCN · 57.0 works7.1×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in General Engineering than the world average.

See General Engineering on the map

General Engineering research by country

The best places for General Engineering research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study General Engineering?

Among universities, judged by research, Southwest Jiaotong University, Tongji University and Zhejiang University score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 18.12%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Zhejiang UniversitySouthwest Jiaotong U…Central South Univer…Tongji University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Southwest Jiaotong UniversityChina 91.7#1 (#2)24.2%77.5×87 -8.3%
2Tongji UniversityChina 73.7- (#1)10.4%23.1×52 -14.2%
3Zhejiang UniversityChina 61.4- (#3)27.5%3.5×14 +11.1%
4Central South UniversityChina 54.5- (#8)21.6%15.1×43 +23.7%
5Beijing Jiaotong UniversityChina 45.5- (#15)19.5%45.4×40 +2.9%
6Hohai UniversityChina 34.7- (#9)10.3%9.9×8 +18.0%
7Chang'an UniversityChina 34.3- (#14)15.0%33.4×18 +7.3%
8China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 30.8- (#21)17.8%17.6×20 -11.8%
9Southeast UniversityChina 30.5- (#18)24.5%4.5×10 -3.5%
10Lanzhou Jiaotong UniversityChina 21.4- (#30)10.4%75.1×26 +143.7%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in General Engineering, country by country

Is General Engineering research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 4% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2011. The fastest-growing topics are Civil and Geotechnical Engineering Research.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is General Engineering as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.0093% in 2024.

still counting0.050%0.10%General Engineering0.0071% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of General Engineering over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%General Engineering10.5% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does General Engineering include?

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Who leads General Engineering, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead General Engineering, for a post or a slide.

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1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges1Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

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