Use of the Stanford-Elsevier "Top 2% Scientists" Database in Moroccan Academic Communication and Its Implications for Research Evaluation

The Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators, commonly referred toas the “Stanford Top 2% Scientists” list, is a bibliometric dataset that classifies researchers by means of acomposite citation indicator computed on Scopus data. In the last few years, the inclusion of researchers inthis dataset has become a recurrent subject of institutional communication and press coverage in Morocco,where it is frequently presented as a distinction conferred by Stanford University. A correct interpretationof the dataset is necessary, since its public use influences institutional reputation, the perception of researchquality and, potentially, recruitment and promotion decisions. This work presents a description of theconstruction of the dataset and of its main methodological limitations, followed by a content analysis of15 Moroccan institutional and press texts published between September 2024 and October 2026. Eachtext was coded against nine reporting indicators, covering the attribution of the ranking, the vocabularyemployed, the ranking category and the presence of verifiable information. All the analysed texts presentthe dataset as a Stanford ranking, 14 of them use an unqualified “top 2% in the world” formulation, 11attribute to the dataset an assessment of publication quality that is absent from its methodology, and noneprovides a link to the primary data. The results show a systematic shift from a citation-based classificationtowards an institutional distinction, which is particularly evident in the case of private universities. A setof reporting guidelines and evaluation practices is finally proposed for Moroccan universities and researchpolicy makers.