Scholarly Trends and Rankings in Mechanical Engineering and Heat Transfer: A Global Analysis of Impact and Influence

Abstract Data generated using artificial intelligence and reported by the ScholarGPS® ranking platform are used to reveal unique scholarly trends including the impact and influence of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Heat Transfer research. Publication and citation histories for both ME and Heat Transfer are presented for 1970–2023. A breakdown of publications is provided such as the percentage of ME publications that deal with Heat Transfer, and the percentage of Heat Transfer publications authored by ME scholars. Based on the productivity (archival publications), impact (citations), and quality (h-index) of individual scholars, the influence of countries, in both ME and Heat Transfer, is reported. Countries with growing, decreasing, and emerging influence in the last five years are identified. Top-ranked scholars and academic (and, separately, non-academic) institutions are listed for both ME and Heat Transfer. Based on their lifetime work, the world?s Top 20 Highly Ranked ScholarsTM in both ME and Heat Transfer are identified. In general, it is found that the United States and Canada, along with other developed nations have suffered significant declines in their influence in both ME and Heat Transfer research. In contrast, China, India, Iran, and other developing countries have increased their scholarly influence in both ME and Heat Transfer. University rankings follow similar trends. The methodologies used to identify the preceding trends are described in detail, so that studies of any of the 14 Fields, 177 Disciplines, and 350,000 Specialties covered by ScholarGPS can be conducted by other individuals and organizations.