The 2026 edition of the World’s Top 2% Scientists List, produced by a Stanford University research team in partnership with Elsevier, was released on October 7. Ten scholars from Tongji University School of Economics and Management (Tongji SEM) have been selected, marking an increase of two scholars from last year and demonstrating the school’s rising global academic standing.

The ranking consists of two categories: Career-long Impact, which evaluates cumulative scholarly influence over an entire academic career, and Single-year Impact, which recognizes research achievements from the most recent year. This year, Associate Professor Bing WU makes her debut on the Career-long Impact list. Professor Kenneth A. KIM and postdoctoral researcher Junaid Aftab (supervised by Professor Feng WEI) are new additions to the Single-year Impact list. The cohort spans senior, mid-career and early-career researchers, showing a vibrant, sustainable research ecosystem within SEM.

Five scholars feature in the Career-long Impact ranking: Huchen LIU, Shuai SHAO, Qian SHI, Weimin MA and Bing WU. Nine researchers appear on the Single-year Impact list: Huchen LIU, Shuai SHAO, Xuemei XIE, Qian SHI, Kenneth A. KIM, Shijin WANG, Bing WU, Tahir ISLAM and Junaid AFTAB. Their research covers a wide spectrum including quality and reliability management, environmental and resource economics, urban and infrastructure governance, operations research, knowledge management, green innovation and corporate finance.

Compiled using citation counts, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted hm-index and single/ first-author citation metrics, the list identifies leading researchers across 20 major disciplines and 174 subfields worldwide. It offers an objective benchmark for the international visibility of scholarly output.

The selection of these ten scholars underscores Tongji SEM’s commitment to rigorous, globally competitive research. Moving forward, the school will continue to support interdisciplinary exploration and high-impact academic work to strengthen its international research influence.