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| Essential Science Indicators (ESI), part of the Web of Science Core Collection, provides two distinct metrics for identifying influential research: Highly Cited Papers and Hot Papers. A Highly Cited Paper is a publication that has accumulated enough citations over the past ten years to place it in the top 1% of publications in its field for the same publication year. In contrast, a Hot Paper is a much more recent publication - from the past two years - that has demonstrated an exceptional burst of influence by receiving enough citations in the most recent two-month period to rank in the top 0.1% of publications in its field and added to the database in the same period. 25 Feb 2026 [1 min read] |
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Below is a comparison table for the two metrics.
| Highly Cited Papers | Hot Papers | |
| Data Source | Publications: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) Citations: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) |
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| Document Types | Regular scientific articles and review articles | |
| Subject Classification | 22 ESI research fields | |
| Publication Coverage | Past 10 years | Past 2 years |
| Citation Threshold | Top 1% based on total citations over the 10-year period |
Top 0.1% based on citations over the most recent 2-month period |
| Normalization | ESI research field and publication year | ESI research field and period added to Web of Science |
The thresholds for Highly Cited and Hot Papers vary by field and publication age cohort. For example, in the 5th bi-monthly 2025 ESI data, Highly Cited Papers require Agricultural Sciences 2015 papers to have ≥199 citations (vs. ≥7 for 2025 papers) and Biology & Biochemistry papers to have ≥297 (2015) vs. ≥8 (2025); Hot Papers need Agricultural Sciences papers from Nov-Dec 2023 to gain ≥12 citations, while Biology & Biochemistry papers from Sep-Oct 2025 need ≥5. Note that Highly Cited thresholds ≤2 citations disqualify papers due to insufficient impact evidence.
More information can be viewed at the Library Guide on Highly Cited Papers and Hot Papers.