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Subfield · Social Sciences

General Social Sciences research

General Social Sciences is a subfield of Social Sciences. Science Explorer counts 103k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: academic disciplines concerned with society and the relationships between individuals in society.

Research works
103k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
10k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
16
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+15%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
Spain
19% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
General Social Sciences

What is General Social Sciences research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Social Work, Welfare State, Education, Big Data, Innovation, Culture. Gaining share since 2011-15: Social Communication, Sustainable Development, Community Development, Computational Text Analysis, Topic Modeling. Losing share: Economic Development, Consumer Behavior, Human Aging, Social Science.

▲ gaining share of this field◆ holding its share▼ losing share

Size is the world's fractional works in 2021-25 in the topics tagged with each word; colour compares the word's share of this field with 2011-15. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 40 words, with their numbers
  1. Social Work8,722▼ 0.74×1 topic
  2. Welfare State8,722▼ 0.74×1 topic
  3. Education8,090◆ 1.08×7 topics
  4. Big Data6,216▲ 4.1×2 topics
  5. Innovation5,682◆ 1.05×3 topics
  6. Culture5,452◆ 1.11×2 topics
  7. Computational Text Analysis4,890▲ 5.2×1 topic
  8. Topic Modeling4,890▲ 5.2×1 topic
  9. Migration4,540▲ 1.50×3 topics
  10. Cultural Studies4,394▼ 0.68×4 topics
  11. Law4,014▲ 1.81×2 topics
  12. Economy3,316▲ 2.2×1 topic
  13. Management3,316▲ 2.2×1 topic
  14. Philosophy3,315▼ 0.73×3 topics
  15. Social Science3,298▼ 0.47×2 topics
  16. Globalization3,223◆ 1.06×4 topics
  17. History3,144▼ 0.67×3 topics
  18. Economic Development2,752▼ 0.42×2 topics
  19. Social Sciences2,710▼ 0.69×3 topics
  20. Ethics2,617▼ 0.68×2 topics
  21. Consumer Behavior2,522▼ 0.42×1 topic
  22. Human Aging2,522▼ 0.42×1 topic
  23. Technology2,366▼ 0.60×2 topics
  24. Economics2,136▼ 0.63×1 topic
  25. Society2,136▼ 0.63×1 topic
  26. Image Processing2,134▲ 1.87×1 topic
  27. Ritual2,134▲ 1.87×1 topic
  28. Cultural Heritage2,024▲ 1.57×2 topics
  29. Sociology1,473◆ 0.87×2 topics
  30. Healthcare1,326▲ 2.3×1 topic
  31. Sustainability1,326▲ 2.3×1 topic
  32. Gender Studies1,184▲ 2.3×2 topics
  33. Psychology1,179◆ 1.02×2 topics
  34. Community Development796▲ 5.3×2 topics
  35. Qualitative Research776▼ 0.79×1 topic
  36. Research Methodology776▼ 0.79×1 topic
  37. Social Communication703▲ 10×1 topic
  38. Sustainable Development703▲ 10×1 topic
  39. Anthropology698◆ 0.97×1 topic
  40. Linguistics698◆ 0.97×1 topic

Which countries lead General Social Sciences research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, Spain and Germany rank highest in General Social Sciences. By volume, Spain and Indonesia publish the most (3.3k and 2.3k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #2 all time 1.04× citation excellence · 1.54× journals · 100% breadth 12.1% top 10% · 1.7k works
  2. 2 Spain #1 all time 1.12× citation excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 12.1% top 10% · 3k works
  3. 3 Germany #6 all time 1.24× citation excellence · 1.39× journals · 100% breadth 9.8% top 10% · 440 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom #3 all time 1.12× citation excellence · 1.44× journals · 100% breadth 12.9% top 10% · 423 works
  5. 5 China #7 all time 0.85× citation excellence · 1.03× journals · 100% breadth 9.3% top 10% · 949 works
  6. 6 Poland #5 all time 1.01× citation excellence · 0.52× journals · 100% breadth 9.3% top 10% · 2.1k works
  7. 7 Chile #4 all time 1.36× citation excellence · 0.56× journals · 100% breadth 12.3% top 10% · 781 works
  8. 8 France #8 all time 0.87× citation excellence · 1.25× journals · 100% breadth 6.0% top 10% · 353 works
  9. 9 Italy #17 all time 1.34× citation excellence · 0.67× journals · 100% breadth 10.8% top 10% · 317 works
  10. 10 Canada #11 all time 0.97× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 9.5% top 10% · 208 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 21 countries ranked in General Social Sciences. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in General Social Sciences

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Spain 3.3k works
  2. 2 Indonesia 2.3k works
  3. 3 United States 2.2k works
  4. 4 Poland 2.2k works
  5. 5 Russia 1.6k works
  6. 6 Mexico 1.5k works
  7. 7 China 1.1k works
  8. 8 Brazil 1k works
  9. 9 Argentina 986 works
  10. 10 Chile 812 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.

Spain: 19.2%Indonesia: 13.8%United States: 12.9%Poland: 12.8%6 others listed: 41.4%19%largest
Spain3,281 · 19.2%Indonesia2,349 · 13.8%United States2,198 · 12.9%Poland2,178 · 12.8%6 others listed7,064 · 41.4%

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

Which institutions lead General Social Sciences research?

Universitat de Barcelona (Spain) ranks first in General Social Sciences on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Universitat de València and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Universitat de Barcelona Spain · Barcelona · #2 all time 11.8% top 10% · 131 works
  2. 2 Universitat de València Spain · Valencia · #10 all time 14.7% top 10% · 116 works
  3. 3 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Spain · Madrid · #4 all time 7.8% top 10% · 133 works
  4. 4 Universidad Complutense de Madrid Spain · Madrid · #9 all time 10.0% top 10% · 268 works
  5. 5 Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Spain · Madrid · #8 all time 14.4% top 10% · 69 works
  6. 6 University of the Basque Country Spain · Leioa · #12 all time 9.4% top 10% · 93 works
  7. 7 Universidad de Sevilla Spain · Seville · #18 all time 16.0% top 10% · 102 works
  8. 8 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Spain · Cerdanyola del Vallès · #1 all time 14.5% top 10% · 77 works
  9. 9 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #14 all time 6.5% top 10% · 93 works
  10. 10 University of Warsaw Poland · Warsaw · #3 all time 6.9% top 10% · 109 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 32 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in General Social Sciences.

Top 100 General Social Sciences institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Universidad Complutense de MadridSpain 285 works
  2. 2 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasArgentina 187 works
  3. 3 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de MéxicoMexico 179 works
  4. 4 Universidad de Buenos AiresArgentina 178 works
  5. 5 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 174 works
  6. 6 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientíficasSpain 155 works
  7. 7 Universitat de BarcelonaSpain 140 works
  8. 8 Adam Mickiewicz University in PoznańPoland 139 works
  9. 9 Universitat de ValènciaSpain 129 works
  10. 10 Universidad Nacional de Educación a DistanciaSpain 124 works

Who are the leading researchers in General Social Sciences?

Counting only their work in General Social Sciences, Gerardo Echeita Sarrionandía, Manuel Castells and Ulrich Beck have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Gerardo Echeita Sarrionandía Spain · #568,649 worldwide overall 18.8 of 54 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Manuel Castells United States · #127,272 worldwide overall 13.9 of 39 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Ulrich Beck Germany · #32,387 worldwide overall 11.2 of 18 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Jordan Lee Boyd-Graber United States · #127,911 worldwide overall 8.8 of 9 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Miguel Ángel Verdugo Alonso Spain · #1,898,304 worldwide overall 19.9 of 86 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Brandon Stewart United States · #67,535 worldwide overall 7.8 of 10 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Wouter van Atteveldt Netherlands · #197,338 worldwide overall 8.0 of 11 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Rosario Ortega Ruiz Spain · #176,976 worldwide overall 10.3 of 38 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Michel Foucault France · #60,338 worldwide overall 8.7 of 20 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Pierre Bourdıeu France · #14,698 worldwide overall 8.9 of 26 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in General Social Sciences alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 263,179 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 Social Sciences researchers

What are the most cited papers in General Social Sciences?

The most cited paper in General Social Sciences is "Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method" (Glenn A. Bowen, 2009), with 12,630 citations. Next come "Techniques to Identify Themes" (5,495) and "Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Measure for Coding Data" (4,263).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method Glenn A. Bowen · Qualitative Research Journal 3 Aug 2009 12,630
2 Techniques to Identify Themes Gery W. Ryan, H. Russell Bernard · Field Methods Feb 2003 5,495
3 Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Measure for Coding Data Andrew F. Hayes, Klaus Krippendorff · Communication Methods and Measures Apr 2007 4,263
4 Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis Donald E. Polkinghorne · International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 1995 3,945
5 Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts Justin Grimmer, Brandon Stewart · Political Analysis Open access 2013 3,332
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is General Social Sciences research done?

The largest centres of General Social Sciences research in 2022-now are Madrid (Spain), Mexico City (Mexico), Moscow (Russia) and Warsaw (Poland).

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 MadridSpain 923 works
  2. 2 Mexico CityMexico 525 works
  3. 3 MoscowRussia 505 works
  4. 4 WarsawPoland 473 works
  5. 5 Buenos AiresArgentina 445 works
  6. 6 SantiagoChile 442 works
  7. 7 BogotáColombia 331 works
  8. 8 KrakowPoland 326 works
  9. 9 BarcelonaSpain 265 works
  10. 10 LimaPeru 258 works
See General Social Sciences on the map

General Social Sciences research by country

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

Where is the best place to study General Social Sciences?

Among universities, judged by research, Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat de València score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation 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%mean 12.06%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Universitat de Valèn…Universitat Autònoma…Universitat de Barce…Universidad Complute…
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%
Citation 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
1Universitat de BarcelonaSpain 81.5#1 (#2)11.6%7.8×140 +29.1%
2Universitat Autònoma de BarcelonaSpain 73.4#8 (#1)14.3%5.4×82 -15.1%
3Universitat de ValènciaSpain 64.8#2 (#10)14.4%10.0×129 +24.9%
4Universidad Complutense de MadridSpain 63.4#4 (#9)9.9%13.7×285 +18.4%
5University of WarsawPoland 59.2#10 (#3)7.0%9.6×113 -19.0%
6Universidad Autónoma de MadridSpain 55.4#5 (#8)13.9%5.6×75 -41.9%
7University of the Basque CountrySpain 53.9#6 (#12)9.2%8.8×98 +9.2%
8Universidad de SevillaSpain 53.0#7 (#18)15.5%8.3×111 +11.1%
9University of ChileChile 52.2#11 (#7)10.3%14.3×118 -31.2%
10Universidad de GranadaSpain 50.8#16 (#11)14.5%7.5×99 -13.5%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation 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 Social Sciences, country by country

Is General Social Sciences research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 15% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Economic, Educational, Environmental and Organizational Development, Islamic Social Reporting and Computational and Text Analysis Methods.

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 Social Sciences as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.12% in 2024.

still counting0.050%0.10%0.15%General Social Sciences0.12% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of General Social Sciences 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 Social Sciences9.8% 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.

  1. Economic, Educational, Environmental and Organizational Development+776%
  2. Islamic Social Reporting+182%
  3. Computational and Text Analysis Methods+156%
  4. Appalachian Studies and Mathematics+53%
  5. Philosophy and Phenomenology Studies+51%
  6. Hume's philosophy and hair distribution+49%
  7. Cultural, Linguistic, Economic Studies-13%
  8. Philosophical Thought and Analysis-21%
  9. HIV, TB, and STIs Epidemiology-27%
  10. Social Issues in Poland-36%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

Growth in output from 2018-21 to 2022-25. Every topic is a page of its own.

What does General Social Sciences include?

Social Sciences and Poli…36kSocial Sciences and Policies: 36k fractional worksSocial Issues in Poland13kSocial Issues in Poland: 13k fractional worksPhilosophical Thought an…10kPhilosophical Thought and Analysis: 10k fractional worksComputational and Text Analysis Methods: 9,339 fractional worksCultural, Linguistic, Economic Studies: 8,024 fractional worksReligion and Sociopoliti…5,259Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria: 5,259 fractional worksSocial Science and Policy Research: 4,460 fractional worksMultidisciplinary Research Papers Compilation: 3,288 fractional worksHume's philosophy and hair distribution: 2,891 fractional worksHIV, TB, and STIs Epidemiology: 2,429 fractional worksPhilosophy and Phenomenology Studies: 1,704 fractional worksInformation Society and Technology Trends: 1,545 fractional works

Area is fractional works in that topic. Every name below is a page of its own.

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Who leads General Social Sciences, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead General Social Sciences, 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' badges6Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

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