Our faculty positions itself as number eight in the world in forest research.

Our faculty positions itself as number eight in the world in forest research (subject area forestry) according to statistics that our previous Guest Professor Dan Binkley – Editor of Forest Ecology and Management – have shared with us. The number one organization is USDA, whose network of research stations across the United States overall has much greater resources for forest research than SLU. Among universities SLU is at the top of the list! The statistics are derived from the Scopus database for the period 2011-2016 and is based on numbers of publications and citations.

The table lists the fifteen top organizations by number of publications. The dominance by North America and Europe is outstanding. Somewhat surprisingly no Asian organization is on the list. Our main competitors among universities are the Oregon State University, the University of Göttingen, and the University of British Columbia, all of which are well known. Next, perhaps a little bit surprisingly, our sister university in the Czech Republic follows. How many of us have partnerships there?

The research area forestry is of course only part of all the research conducted at our faculty. We hope to return with more comprehensive statistics on our position in other areas at a later date. But for the time being let us be satisfied about our top position within the forestry research field!