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Subfield · Engineering

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality is a subfield of Engineering. Science Explorer counts 283k 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: state of being secure from harm, injury, danger, or other non-desirable outcomes.

Research works
283k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
28k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
12
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+27%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
52% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

What is Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Finite Element Analysis, Risk Assessment, Driver Behavior, Traffic Accidents, Slope Stability Analysis, Spatial Variability. Gaining share since 2011-15: Computer Vision, Fire Detection, Slope Stability Analysis, Spatial Variability, Driver Behavior. Losing share: Neural Network, Safety Assessment, Mining Technology, Water Inrush.

▲ 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 27 words, with their numbers
  1. Finite Element Analysis15k▲ 1.46×2 topics
  2. Risk Assessment11k▼ 0.55×4 topics
  3. Driver Behavior11k▲ 1.71×1 topic
  4. Traffic Accidents11k▲ 1.71×1 topic
  5. Slope Stability Analysis11k▲ 2.1×1 topic
  6. Spatial Variability11k▲ 2.1×1 topic
  7. Computer Vision7,829▲ 3.0×1 topic
  8. Fire Detection7,829▲ 3.0×1 topic
  9. Smoke Control6,930▲ 1.53×1 topic
  10. Tunnel Fires6,930▲ 1.53×1 topic
  11. Power System6,248▼ 0.42×2 topics
  12. System Maturity5,849▲ 1.21×1 topic
  13. Technology Readiness Levels5,849▲ 1.21×1 topic
  14. Maintenance Optimization5,664▲ 1.24×1 topic
  15. Reliability Engineering5,664▲ 1.24×1 topic
  16. Reliability Evaluation4,855▲ 1.55×1 topic
  17. Wind Power4,855▲ 1.55×1 topic
  18. Nuclear Fuel4,605▼ 0.86×1 topic
  19. Radiation Protection4,605▼ 0.86×1 topic
  20. Mining Technology3,082▼ 0.23×1 topic
  21. Water Inrush3,082▼ 0.23×1 topic
  22. Assurance Cases1,981▲ 1.23×1 topic
  23. Safety Assurance1,981▲ 1.23×1 topic
  24. Neural Network1,392▼ 0.12×1 topic
  25. Safety Assessment1,392▼ 0.12×1 topic
  26. Occupational Health518▼ 0.84×1 topic
  27. Safety Management518▼ 0.84×1 topic

Which countries lead Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research?

On research quality in 2022-now, China, the United States and the United Kingdom rank highest in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (21k and 6.3k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 China #1 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.12× journals · 100% breadth 13.0% top 10% · 19k works
  2. 2 United States #2 all time 0.88× citation excellence · 1.51× journals · 100% breadth 9.1% top 10% · 5.6k works
  3. 3 United Kingdom #3 all time 1.25× citation excellence · 1.44× journals · 100% breadth 12.9% top 10% · 1.2k works
  4. 4 Germany #4 all time 1.03× citation excellence · 1.38× journals · 100% breadth 9.0% top 10% · 1.3k works
  5. 5 Australia #6 all time 1.37× citation excellence · 1.19× journals · 100% breadth 14.7% top 10% · 807 works
  6. 6 Canada #5 all time 1.13× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 10.8% top 10% · 929 works
  7. 7 Netherlands #10 all time 1.49× citation excellence · 1.45× journals · 100% breadth 15.4% top 10% · 327 works
  8. 8 France #7 all time 0.86× citation excellence · 1.24× journals · 100% breadth 8.6% top 10% · 874 works
  9. 9 South Korea #11 all time 0.97× citation excellence · 0.91× journals · 100% breadth 11.7% top 10% · 1k works
  10. 10 Sweden #12 all time 1.12× citation excellence · 1.38× journals · 100% breadth 11.5% top 10% · 357 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 36 countries ranked in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 21k works
  2. 2 United States 6.3k works
  3. 3 India 4.4k works
  4. 4 Germany 1.5k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 1.4k works
  6. 6 Russia 1.2k works
  7. 7 Indonesia 1.2k works
  8. 8 Japan 1.1k works
  9. 9 South Korea 1.1k works
  10. 10 Canada 1k 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: 52.1%United States: 15.7%India: 11.0%Germany: 3.7%6 others listed: 17.5%52%largest
China21k · 52.1%United States6,337 · 15.7%India4,434 · 11.0%Germany1,478 · 3.7%6 others listed7,081 · 17.5%

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

Which institutions lead Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research?

Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) ranks first in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Tsinghua University and Tongji University.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #1 all time 15.0% top 10% · 363 works
  2. 2 Tsinghua University China · Beijing · #4 all time 17.7% top 10% · 275 works
  3. 3 Tongji University China · Shanghai · #7 all time 17.2% top 10% · 376 works
  4. 4 Chongqing University China · Chongqing · #3 all time 19.1% top 10% · 219 works
  5. 5 University of Science and Technology of China China · Hefei · #5 all time 15.2% top 10% · 206 works
  6. 6 Hong Kong Polytechnic University China · Hong Kong · #35 all time 27.5% top 10% · 126 works
  7. 7 Shanghai Jiao Tong University China · Shanghai · #8 all time 17.5% top 10% · 165 works
  8. 8 Southeast University China · Nanjing · #18 all time 21.6% top 10% · 224 works
  9. 9 Beijing Institute of Technology China · Beijing · #13 all time 21.0% top 10% · 150 works
  10. 10 Dalian University of Technology China · Dalian · #29 all time 19.6% top 10% · 130 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 94 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality.

Top 100 Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 591 works
  2. 2 Tongji UniversityChina 419 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 397 works
  4. 4 Southwest Jiaotong UniversityChina 338 works
  5. 5 Central South UniversityChina 334 works
  6. 6 Tsinghua UniversityChina 307 works
  7. 7 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 247 works
  8. 8 Chongqing UniversityChina 243 works
  9. 9 Southeast UniversityChina 242 works
  10. 10 University of Science and Technology of ChinaChina 234 works

Who are the leading researchers in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality?

Counting only their work in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, Mohamed A. Abdel-Aty, Kok‐Kwang Phoon and Roy Billinton have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Mohamed A. Abdel-Aty United States · #114,552 worldwide overall 78.3 of 195 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Kok‐Kwang Phoon Singapore · #29,540 worldwide overall 49.9 of 108 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Roy Billinton Canada · #258,860 worldwide overall 73.1 of 268 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Shui‐Long Shen China · #4,170 worldwide overall 41.8 of 68 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Wengang Zhang China · #33,361 worldwide overall 37.9 of 73 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Enrico Zio Italy · #74,999 worldwide overall 45.2 of 157 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Robert G. Cooper United Kingdom · #8,946 worldwide overall 31.8 of 41 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Mohammad Shahidehpour United States · #10,180 worldwide overall 40.0 of 83 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Xinyan Huang China · #24,635 worldwide overall 34.6 of 82 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Longhua Hu China · #150,663 worldwide overall 36.3 of 109 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 689,175 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 Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality researchers

What are the most cited papers in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality?

The most cited paper in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality is "Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy" (DavidJ. Teece, 1993), with 7,366 citations. Next come "Travel and the Built Environment" (5,353) and "Congested traffic states in empirical observations and microscopic simulations" (4,784).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy DavidJ. Teece · Research Policy Apr 1993 7,366
2 Travel and the Built Environment Reid Ewing, Robert Cervero · Journal of the American Planning Association 13 May 2010 5,353
3 Congested traffic states in empirical observations and microscopic simulations Martin Treiber, Ansgar Hennecke, Dirk Helbing · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics Open access Aug 2000 4,784
4 Fully-Convolutional Siamese Networks for Object Tracking Luca Bertinetto, Jack Valmadre, João F. Henriques et al. · Lecture notes in computer science Conference paper 2016 4,443
5 AUC: a misleading measure of the performance of predictive distribution models Jorge Miguel Lobo, Alberto Jiménez‐Valverde, Raimundo Real · Global Ecology and Biogeography 14 Sep 2007 3,552
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research done?

The largest centres of Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Xi'an (China) and Nanjing (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Petroşani and Sanhe Shi.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 4.1k works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 1.4k works
  3. 3 Xi'anChina 1.2k works
  4. 4 NanjingChina 1.1k works
  5. 5 WuhanChina 974 works
  6. 6 ChengduChina 873 works
  7. 7 ChangshaChina 677 works
  8. 8 GuangzhouChina 655 works
  9. 9 ChongqingChina 609 works
  10. 10 XuzhouChina 608 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. PetroşaniRO · 42.4 works27×
  2. Sanhe ShiCN · 24.8 works15×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality than the world average.

See Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality on the map

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research by country

The best places for Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality?

Among universities, judged by research, China University of Mining and Technology, Chongqing University and Tsinghua 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%30%mean 18.51%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Chongqing UniversityTsinghua UniversityTongji UniversityChina University of …
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
1China University of Mining and TechnologyChina 87.2#12 (#2)15.0%15.4×591 +31.5%
2Chongqing UniversityChina 84.8#4 (#3)18.7%4.6×243 +28.8%
3Tsinghua UniversityChina 83.7#2 (#4)17.3%2.7×307 +27.2%
4Tongji UniversityChina 80.1#3 (#7)16.7%5.6×419 +23.5%
5University of Science and Technology of ChinaChina 76.5#5 (#5)14.8%4.0×234 +13.7%
6Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 70.8#7 (#8)17.1%1.3×182 +25.3%
7Southeast UniversityChina 69.1#8 (#18)21.2%3.3×242 +38.1%
8Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 68.5#9 (#13)21.0%2.8×161 +50.8%
9Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 68.2#6 (#35)26.3%3.5×148 +54.4%
10Central South UniversityChina 67.9#17 (#12)17.0%3.5×334 +38.4%

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 Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, country by country

Is Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 27% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Fire Detection and Safety Systems, Geoscience and Mining Technology and Geotechnical Engineering and Analysis.

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 Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.25% in 2024.

still counting0.20%0.40%0.60%Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality0.24% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality 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%Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality10.0% 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. Fire Detection and Safety Systems+117%
  2. Geoscience and Mining Technology+46%
  3. Geotechnical Engineering and Analysis+32%
  4. Evaluation and Optimization Models+30%
  5. Fire dynamics and safety research+23%
  6. Power System Reliability and Maintenance+22%
  7. Industrial and Mining Safety-23%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

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

What does Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality include?

Geoscience and Mining Te…35kGeoscience and Mining Technology: 35k fractional worksTraffic and Road Safety35kTraffic and Road Safety: 35k fractional worksEvaluation and Optimization Models: 33k fractional worksNuclear and radioactivit…32kNuclear and radioactivity studies: 32k fractional worksGeotechnical Engineering…29kGeotechnical Engineering and Analysis: 29k fractional worksFire dynamics and safety research: 25k fractional worksReliability and Maintenance Optimization: 24k fractional worksTechnology Assessment an…24kTechnology Assessment and Management: 24k fractional worksPower System Reliability and Maintenance: 17k fractional worksFire Detection and Safety Systems: 17k fractional worksSafety Systems Engineering in Autonomy: 8,165 fractional worksIndustrial and Mining Safety: 2,507 fractional works

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

Share who leads Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

Who leads Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality, 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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