US dominates chemical research over 10 years

Academics with US affiliations took 70 out of the top 100 slots in a recent listing of the world's leading chemists, published by the UK's Times Higher Education. Ranked by the impact of their citations over the past decade, as monitored by Thomson Reuters, the listing also shows that no fewer than 60% cited nanotechnology as their major field of research or interest.

Lieber - prolific and top ranking chemist

No other country came close. The next in the list was Germany with seven leading chemists and then the UK, with four. The top two academics in the UK were from the QUILL laboratory in Queens University, Belfast, cited for their work on ionic liquids. They are Professor Ken Seddon and Dr John Holbrey.

QUILL represents a classic academic/industry consortium for innovation in green chemistry and was founded in 1999 with 17 founder members, including Bioplymer Engineering; BNFL; BP Amoco; Chem Vite; Chevron; DuPont; Elementis; Exxon; ICI; Merck; Sachem; Sasol; Schering Plough; SmithKline Beecham; Solvay; UOP; and Zeneca. QUILL's current membership includes Chevron; Clea Technologies; Cristal Millennium; Cytec; Eastman Chemicals; Enviroways Technologies; Givaudan; Invista; Merck; Petronas; Procter & Gamble; SACHEM; Shell; Strata; Koei; and Umicore.

For the record, the top ranking chemist was Charles Lieber of Harvard University, with 74 papers published and 17,776 citations!