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Subfield · Medicine

Rheumatology research

Rheumatology is a subfield of Medicine. Science Explorer counts 562k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: medical specialty dealing with autoimmune diseases, especially those of joints and connective tissues, including arthritis.

Research works
562k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
57k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
24
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+11%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
28% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Rheumatology

This ranks research output and citation impact. It says nothing about the quality of diagnosis, treatment or care.

What is Rheumatology research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Inflammation, Autoantibodies, Quality of Life, Surgical Treatment, Biological Therapy, Epidemiology. Gaining share since 2011-15: Clinical Features, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Spondyloarthritis, Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria, Urticaria. Losing share: Folate, Homocysteine, Biomineralization, Chondrosarcoma.

▲ 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. Inflammation33k◆ 1.02×4 topics
  2. Autoantibodies32k◆ 1.01×3 topics
  3. Quality of Life18k◆ 1.07×2 topics
  4. Surgical Treatment16k◆ 1.01×2 topics
  5. Biological Therapy15k◆ 0.99×2 topics
  6. Epidemiology14k◆ 1.01×2 topics
  7. Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs14k◆ 0.97×1 topic
  8. Rheumatoid Arthritis14k◆ 0.97×1 topic
  9. Cartilage13k◆ 1.04×1 topic
  10. Osteoarthritis13k◆ 1.04×1 topic
  11. Antiphospholipid Syndrome13k◆ 0.98×1 topic
  12. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus13k◆ 0.98×1 topic
  13. Pelvic Floor Dysfunction13k◆ 1.02×1 topic
  14. Urinary Incontinence13k◆ 1.02×1 topic
  15. Cardiovascular Disease10k◆ 0.95×2 topics
  16. Ankylosing Spondylitis7,535▲ 1.29×1 topic
  17. Spondyloarthritis7,535▲ 1.29×1 topic
  18. Folate7,418▼ 0.80×1 topic
  19. Homocysteine7,418▼ 0.80×1 topic
  20. Chondrosarcoma6,633▼ 0.84×1 topic
  21. Chordoma6,633▼ 0.84×1 topic
  22. Fusion Genes6,283◆ 0.99×1 topic
  23. Hypereosinophilic Syndrome6,283◆ 0.99×1 topic
  24. Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria5,964▲ 1.17×1 topic
  25. Urticaria5,964▲ 1.17×1 topic
  26. Radiation Therapy5,541◆ 0.89×2 topics
  27. Radiotherapy5,388◆ 0.95×2 topics
  28. Genetic Mutations4,656◆ 1.01×2 topics
  29. Angiomyxoma4,473◆ 0.87×1 topic
  30. Prostate4,473◆ 0.87×1 topic
  31. Genetic Susceptibility4,328◆ 0.97×2 topics
  32. Desmoid Tumor4,046▼ 0.85×1 topic
  33. Solitary Fibrous Tumor4,046▼ 0.85×1 topic
  34. Pigmented Villonodular Synovitis3,863◆ 0.97×1 topic
  35. Synovial Chondromatosis3,863◆ 0.97×1 topic
  36. Pediatric Patients3,752◆ 1.03×2 topics
  37. Autoimmune Pancreatitis3,664◆ 1.11×1 topic
  38. IgG4-Related Disease3,664◆ 1.11×1 topic
  39. Clinical Features3,378▲ 1.37×2 topics
  40. Biomineralization3,250▼ 0.82×1 topic

Which countries lead Rheumatology research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and Germany rank highest in Rheumatology. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (21k and 18k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.05× citation excellence · 1.65× journals · 100% breadth 11.6% top 10% · 18k works
  2. 2 China #4 all time 1.35× citation excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 14.7% top 10% · 15k works
  3. 3 Germany #2 all time 1.59× citation excellence · 1.43× journals · 100% breadth 12.2% top 10% · 3.4k works
  4. 4 France #5 all time 1.64× citation excellence · 1.30× journals · 100% breadth 11.8% top 10% · 3.1k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom #3 all time 1.12× citation excellence · 1.44× journals · 100% breadth 13.3% top 10% · 4.2k works
  6. 6 Netherlands #6 all time 1.44× citation excellence · 1.47× journals · 100% breadth 15.2% top 10% · 1.5k works
  7. 7 Switzerland #7 all time 1.50× citation excellence · 1.86× journals · 100% breadth 13.3% top 10% · 923 works
  8. 8 Italy #10 all time 1.60× citation excellence · 0.67× journals · 100% breadth 17.3% top 10% · 3.6k works
  9. 9 Canada #8 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.21× journals · 100% breadth 12.4% top 10% · 1.9k works
  10. 10 Australia #9 all time 1.27× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 13.4% top 10% · 1.5k 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 50 countries ranked in Rheumatology. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Rheumatology

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 21k works
  2. 2 China 18k works
  3. 3 India 7.2k works
  4. 4 Japan 5.6k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 4.9k works
  6. 6 Italy 4.1k works
  7. 7 Germany 3.9k works
  8. 8 France 3.5k works
  9. 9 Türkiye 3.4k works
  10. 10 Spain 3.2k 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.

United States: 27.9%China: 24.2%India: 9.6%Japan: 7.6%6 others listed: 30.7%28%largest
United States21k · 27.9%China18k · 24.2%India7,165 · 9.6%Japan5,637 · 7.6%6 others listed23k · 30.7%

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

Which institutions lead Rheumatology research?

Harvard University (United States) ranks first in Rheumatology on research quality in 2022-now, followed by National Institutes of Health and Inserm.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Harvard University United States · Cambridge · #1 all time 17.9% top 10% · 761 works
  2. 2 National Institutes of Health United States · Bethesda · #2 all time 25.0% top 10% · 190 works
  3. 3 Inserm France · Paris · #9 all time 15.0% top 10% · 382 works
  4. 4 Stanford University United States · Stanford · #3 all time 16.7% top 10% · 208 works
  5. 5 Peking University China · Beijing · #25 all time 14.2% top 10% · 515 works
  6. 6 Université Paris Cité France · Paris · #17 all time 11.4% top 10% · 287 works
  7. 7 Shanghai Jiao Tong University China · Shanghai · #26 all time 16.4% top 10% · 469 works
  8. 8 University of Pennsylvania United States · Philadelphia · #8 all time 14.7% top 10% · 238 works
  9. 9 Johns Hopkins University United States · Baltimore · #4 all time 15.2% top 10% · 293 works
  10. 10 University of California, San Francisco United States · San Francisco · #6 all time 13.2% top 10% · 202 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 320 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Rheumatology.

Top 100 Rheumatology institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Harvard UniversityUnited States 856 works
  2. 2 All India Institute of Medical SciencesIndia 604 works
  3. 3 Peking UniversityChina 586 works
  4. 4 Sichuan UniversityChina 546 works
  5. 5 Mayo ClinicUnited States 541 works
  6. 6 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 536 works
  7. 7 Capital Medical UniversityChina 436 works
  8. 8 InsermFrance 433 works
  9. 9 Sun Yat-sen UniversityChina 424 works
  10. 10 University of TorontoCanada 412 works

Who are the leading researchers in Rheumatology?

Counting only their work in Rheumatology, Désirée M F M van der Heijde, Dafna D. Gladman and Paul E. Emery have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Désirée M F M van der Heijde Netherlands · #9,455 worldwide overall 187.3 of 493 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Dafna D. Gladman Canada · #37,096 worldwide overall 161.1 of 516 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Paul E. Emery United Kingdom · #21,715 worldwide overall 153.9 of 468 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 David T. Felson United States · #16,596 worldwide overall 133.0 of 395 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Michelle Petri United States · #8,146 worldwide overall 120.3 of 283 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Ronald van Vollenhoven Sweden · #18,473 worldwide overall 103.2 of 272 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Philip J. Mease United States · #74,859 worldwide overall 110.4 of 366 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Joachim Sieper Germany · #18,429 worldwide overall 99.1 of 272 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Georg Andreas Schett Germany · #9,365 worldwide overall 97.0 of 263 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 David John Hunter Australia · #23,754 worldwide overall 105.7 of 380 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Rheumatology alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 1,600,764 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 Rheumatology researchers

What are the most cited papers in Rheumatology?

The most cited paper in Rheumatology is "Multilineage Potential of Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells" (Mark F. Pittenger, Alastair M. Mackay, Stephen C. Beck et al., 1999), with 21,222 citations. Next come "The american rheumatism association 1987 revised criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis" (19,994) and "The 1982 revised criteria for the classification of systemic lupus erythematosus" (14,664).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Multilineage Potential of Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Mark F. Pittenger, Alastair M. Mackay, Stephen C. Beck et al. · Science 2 Apr 1999 21,222
2 The american rheumatism association 1987 revised criteria for the classification of rheumatoid arthritis Frank C. Arnett, Steven M. Edworthy, Daniel A. Bloch et al. · Arthritis & Rheumatism Mar 1988 19,994
3 The 1982 revised criteria for the classification of systemic lupus erythematosus Eng M. Tan, Alan S. Cohen, James F. Fries et al. · Arthritis & Rheumatism Nov 1982 14,664
4 The Clavien-Dindo Classification of Surgical Complications Pierre A. Clavien, Jeffrey Stewart Barkun, Michelle L. De Oliveira et al. · Annals of Surgery 31 Jul 2009 11,607
5 Updating the American college of rheumatology revised criteria for the classification of systemic lupus erythematosus Marc C. Hochberg · Arthritis & Rheumatism Sep 1997 11,602
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Rheumatology research done?

The largest centres of Rheumatology research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), London (United Kingdom), Shanghai (China) and Paris (France). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Herne and Valence.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 2.5k works
  2. 2 LondonUnited Kingdom 1.4k works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 1.4k works
  4. 4 ParisFrance 1.3k works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 1.3k works
  6. 6 GuangzhouChina 1.2k works
  7. 7 SeoulSouth Korea 1.1k works
  8. 8 New YorkUnited States 1.1k works
  9. 9 MoscowRussia 974 works
  10. 10 IstanbulTürkiye 951 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. HerneDE · 61.1 works27×
  2. ValenceFR · 22.5 works21×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

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

See Rheumatology on the map

Rheumatology research by country

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

Where is the best place to study Rheumatology?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University 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 15.13%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Harvard UniversityStanford UniversityJohns Hopkins Univer…University of Califo…
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
1Harvard UniversityUnited States 90.2#1 (#1)17.1%2.8×856 -0.9%
2Stanford UniversityUnited States 71.1#4 (#3)16.0%1.7×246 -7.5%
3Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 70.5#9 (#4)14.8%2.2×334 -0.2%
4University of California, San FranciscoUnited States 63.4#10 (#6)13.3%3.4×234 -9.1%
5University of TorontoCanada 61.9#12 (#10)12.9%2.1×412 -9.4%
6University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 61.9#8 (#8)14.6%2.6×268 -6.4%
7Peking UniversityChina 61.6#5 (#25)13.8%3.0×586 +17.6%
8Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 60.9#7 (#26)15.9%1.9×536 +34.2%
9Karolinska InstitutetSweden 60.5#13 (#28)18.0%4.8×261 +3.0%
10University of MichiganUnited States 60.0#17 (#12)14.9%1.7×246 +8.4%

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 Rheumatology, country by country

Is Rheumatology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 11% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are GDF15 and Related Biomarkers, Otitis Media and Relapsing Polychondritis and Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy and related conditions.

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 Rheumatology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.45% in 2024.

still counting0.25%0.50%0.75%Rheumatology0.47% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Rheumatology 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%Rheumatology10.1% 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. GDF15 and Related Biomarkers+47%
  2. Otitis Media and Relapsing Polychondritis+31%
  3. Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy and related conditions+20%
  4. Omental and Epiploic Conditions+19%
  5. Dupuytren's Contracture and Treatments+18%
  6. Spondyloarthritis Studies and Treatments+18%
  7. Soft tissue tumor case studies-1%
  8. Urologic and reproductive health conditions-3%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

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

What does Rheumatology include?

Systemic Lupus Erythemat…57kSystemic Lupus Erythematosus Research: 57k fractional worksPelvic floor disorders t…55kPelvic floor disorders treatments: 55k fractional worksRheumatoid Arthritis Research and Therapies: 54k fractional worksOsteoarthritis Treatment…50kOsteoarthritis Treatment and Mechanisms: 50k fractional worksFolate and B Vitamins Re…45kFolate and B Vitamins Research: 45k fractional worksBone Tumor Diagnosis and Treatments: 34k fractional worksEosinophilic Disorders and Syndromes: 30k fractional worksUrticaria and Related Conditions: 27k fractional worksUrologic and reproductive health conditions: 26k fractional worksSpondyloarthritis Studies and Treatments: 25k fractional worksSoft tissue tumor case studies: 22k fractional worksBone and Dental Protein Studies: 19k fractional works

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

Share who leads Rheumatology

Who leads Rheumatology, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Rheumatology, 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

Discussion

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