University Times

Pitt showed the greatest jump — a threefold increase — among the 25 most publishing-productive American research universities in the total number of research papers published by its faculty in the years 2005-09 compared to the 1981-85 time period.

According to an analysis of the U.S. research base by Thomson Reuters and reported recently by The Chronicle of Higher Education and the journal Science, the number of Pitt faculty-published research papers climbed from 7,483 papers in 1981-85 to 22,457 in 2005-09.

The term “most publishing productive” connotes the fact that the 25 institutions in the Thomson Reuters publication output table in the Chronicle and Science articles published the greatest numbers of papers between 2005 and 2009 and among them hold a combined 42 percent share of the overall U.S. output of papers during those years.

The publication output table also shows Pitt producing 1.39 percent of the total U.S. research papers in 2005-09, almost double Pitt’s 0.77 percent share in 1981-85. Based on that statistic, the University placed 10th among public universities and 16th among all universities in the table’s overall listing.

In addition, Pitt is shown to have ranked 5th in the absolute increase between the 1981-85 and 2005-09 time periods in its percentage share of the total number of research papers published in the United States.