top ranking research papers

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Collection  12 March 2023

Journal Top 100 - 2022

This collection highlights our most downloaded* research papers published in 2022. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

You can also check out the Top 100 across various subject areas here .

*Data obtained from SN Insights, which is based on Digital Science’s Dimensions.

mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies more effective than natural immunity in neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 and its high affinity variants

• Dominic Esposito

Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

• Saho Takagi
• Atsuko Saito
• Hika Kuroshima

Metformin administration is associated with enhanced response to transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma in type 2 diabetes patients

• Woo Jin Jung
• Sangmi Jang
• Jin-Wook Kim

The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background

• Bruno Sauce
• Magnus Liebherr
• Torkel Klingberg

Life tables of annual life expectancy and mortality for companion dogs in the United Kingdom

• Kendy Tzu-yun Teng
• Dave C. Brodbelt
• Dan G. O’Neill

Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD

• Gabriele Scorrano
• Serena Viva
• Fabio Macciardi

Reading on a smartphone affects sigh generation, brain activity, and comprehension

• Motoyasu Honma
• Yuri Masaoka
• Masahiko Izumizaki

Principal Component Analyses (PCA)-based findings in population genetic studies are highly biased and must be reevaluated

• Eran Elhaik

The determinants of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality across countries

• Dianna Chang
• Kelvin Jui Keng Tan

Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants

• J. Sundermann

Identification of ADS024, a newly characterized strain of Bacillus velezensis with direct Clostridiodes difficile killing and toxin degradation bio-activities

• Michelle M. O’Donnell
• James W. Hegarty
• Laurent Chesnel

Multiple sclerosis genetic and non-genetic factors interact through the transient transcriptome

• Renato Umeton
• Gianmarco Bellucci
• Giovanni Ristori

The effect of metformin on the survival of colorectal cancer patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

• Zeinab Tarhini
• Kamelia Manceur
• Niki Christou

Chemical characterisation of the vapour emitted by an e-cigarette using a ceramic wick-based technology

• M. Isabel Pinto

Large-magnitude (VEI ≥ 7) ‘wet’ explosive silicic eruption preserved a Lower Miocene habitat at the Ipolytarnóc Fossil Site, North Hungary

• Dávid Karátson
• Imre Szarvas

Far-UVC (222 nm) efficiently inactivates an airborne pathogen in a room-sized chamber

• Waseem Hiwar
• Kenneth Wood

Low dose aspirin associated with greater bone mineral density in older adults

• Hongzhan Liu
• Xungang Xiao

First direct evidence of adult European eels migrating to their breeding place in the Sargasso Sea

• Rosalind M. Wright
• Adam T. Piper
• David Righton

Infections with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant exhibit fourfold increased viral loads in the upper airways compared to Alpha or non-variants of concern

• Christian J. H. von Wintersdorff
• Jozef Dingemans
• Paul H. M. Savelkoul

Inappropriate sinus tachycardia in post-COVID-19 syndrome

• Júlia Aranyó
• Victor Bazan
• Roger Villuendas

The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf

• Gerhard W. Weber
• Alexander Lukeneder

COVID-19 reinfections among naturally infected and vaccinated individuals

• Sezanur Rahman
• M. Mahfuzur Rahman
• Mustafizur Rahman

Lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic strongly impacted the circulation of respiratory pathogens in Southern China

• Heping Wang
• Yuejie Zheng
• Wenjian Wang

Alzheimer’s disease large-scale gene expression portrait identifies exercise as the top theoretical treatment

• Mason A. Hill
• Stephen C. Gammie

COVID-19 symptoms are reduced by targeted hydration of the nose, larynx and trachea

• Carolin Elizabeth George
• Gerhard Scheuch
• David A. Edwards

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces cognitive deficit and anxiety-like behavior in mouse via non-cell autonomous hippocampal neuronal death

• Junyoung Oh
• Woo-Hyun Cho
• Sung Joong Lee

Abdominal pain patterns during COVID-19: an observational study

• Alexandre Balaphas
• Kyriaki Gkoufa
• Christian Toso

Detection of human pathogenic bacteria in rectal DNA samples from Zalophus californianus in the Gulf of California, Mexico

• Francesco Cicala
• David Ramírez-Delgado
• Alexei F. Licea-Navarro

Industrialised fishing nations largely contribute to floating plastic pollution in the North Pacific subtropical gyre

• Laurent Lebreton
• Sarah-Jeanne Royer
• Matthias Egger

Hypertension and diabetes including their earlier stage are associated with increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest

• Seung Young Roh
• Young-Hoon Kim

Utility of an artificial intelligence system for classification of esophageal lesions when simulating its clinical use

• Ayaka Tajiri
• Ryu Ishihara
• Tomohiro Tada

Prevalence, age of decision, and interpersonal warmth judgements of childfree adults

• Zachary P. Neal
• Jennifer Watling Neal

Acute and protracted abstinence from methamphetamine bidirectionally changes intrinsic excitability of indirect pathway spiny projection neurons in the dorsomedial striatum

• Sanghoon Choi
• Steven M. Graves

Indeterminacy of cannabis impairment and ∆ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (∆ 9 -THC) levels in blood and breath

• Gregory T. Wurz
• Michael W. DeGregorio

High rates of plasmid cotransformation in E. coli overturn the clonality myth and reveal colony development

• Delia Tomoiaga
• Jaclyn Bubnell
• Paul Feinstein

Metformin sensitizes leukemic cells to cytotoxic lymphocytes by increasing expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1)

• Nerea Allende-Vega
• Joaquin Marco Brualla
• Martin Villalba

Incorporation of machine learning and deep neural network approaches into a remote sensing-integrated crop model for the simulation of rice growth

• Seungtaek Jeong
• Jong-min Yeom

Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor well-being, especially in happy nations

• Egon Dejonckheere
• Joshua J. Rhee
• Brock Bastian

The earliest Pleistocene record of a large-bodied hominin from the Levant supports two out-of-Africa dispersal events

• Alon Barash
• Miriam Belmaker

Generation mechanism and prediction of an observed extreme rogue wave

• Johannes Gemmrich

Fitness tracking reveals task-specific associations between memory, mental health, and physical activity

• Jeremy R. Manning
• Gina M. Notaro
• Paxton C. Fitzpatrick

Domestic dogs ( Canis familiaris ) grieve over the loss of a conspecific

• Stefania Uccheddu
• Lucia Ronconi
• Federica Pirrone

Human transgenerational observations of regular smoking before puberty on fat mass in grandchildren and great-grandchildren

• Jean Golding
• Steve Gregory
• Matthew Suderman

Chlamydia pneumoniae can infect the central nervous system via the olfactory and trigeminal nerves and contributes to Alzheimer’s disease risk

• Jenny A. K. Ekberg

Oxycodone/naloxone versus tapentadol in real-world chronic non-cancer pain management: an observational and pharmacogenetic study

• Jordi Barrachina
• Cesar Margarit
• Ana M. Peiró

Cooking methods are associated with inflammatory factors, renal function, and other hormones and nutritional biomarkers in older adults

• Montserrat Rodríguez-Ayala
• José Ramón Banegas
• Pilar Guallar-Castillón

Classification of pig calls produced from birth to slaughter according to their emotional valence and context of production

• Elodie F. Briefer
• Ciara C.-R. Sypherd
• Céline Tallet

Higher emotional awareness is associated with greater domain-general reflective tendencies

• Michelle Persich
• William D. S. Killgore

A large Megaraptoridae (Theropoda: Coelurosauria) from Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Patagonia, Argentina

• Alexis M. Aranciaga Rolando
• Matias J. Motta
• Fernando E. Novas

Long COVID occurrence in COVID-19 survivors

• Aya Sugiyama
• Junko Tanaka

Water activated disposable paper battery

• Alexandre Poulin
• Xavier Aeby
• Gustav Nyström

Intestinal preservation in a birdlike dinosaur supports conservatism in digestive canal evolution among theropods

• Yichuan Liu

Antiviral effect of cetylpyridinium chloride in mouthwash on SARS-CoV-2

• Hirofumi Sawa

Evidence of an oceanic impact and megatsunami sedimentation in Chryse Planitia, Mars

• J. Alexis P. Rodriguez
• Darrel K. Robertson
• Mario Zarroca

Curcumin and metformin synergistically modulate peripheral and central immune mechanisms of pain

• Peththa Wadu Dasuni Wasana
• Pasarapa Towiwat

The first occurrence of an avian-style respiratory infection in a non-avian dinosaur

• D. Cary Woodruff
• Ewan D. S. Wolff
• Lawrence M. Witmer

Optimal linear estimation models predict 1400–2900 years of overlap between Homo sapiens and Neandertals prior to their disappearance from France and northern Spain

• Igor Djakovic
• Alastair Key
• Marie Soressi

The influence of time on the sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 serological testing

• Arturo Torres Ortiz
• Fernanda Fenn Torrente
• Louis Grandjean

Online misinformation is linked to early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and refusal

• Francesco Pierri
• Brea L. Perry
• John Bryden

A distinct symptom pattern emerges for COVID-19 long-haul: a nationwide study

• Melissa D. Pinto
• Charles A. Downs
• Natalie Lambert

SARS-CoV-2-reactive IFN-γ-producing CD4 + and CD8 + T cells in blood do not correlate with clinical severity in unvaccinated critically ill COVID-19 patients

• Beatriz Olea
• Eliseo Albert
• David Navarro

Classification of 74 facial emoji’s emotional states on the valence-arousal axes

• Gaku Kutsuzawa
• Hiroyuki Umemura
• Yoshiyuki Kobayashi

The emergence of a new sex-system (XX/XY 1 Y 2 ) suggests a species complex in the “monotypic” rodent Oecomys auyantepui (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae)

• Willam Oliveira da Silva
• Celina Coelho Rosa
• Cleusa Yoshiko Nagamachi

Detection of COVID-19 using multimodal data from a wearable device: results from the first TemPredict Study

• Ashley E. Mason
• Frederick M. Hecht
• Benjamin L. Smarr

Spinal degeneration is associated with lumbar multifidus morphology in secondary care patients with low back or leg pain

• Jeffrey R. Cooley
• Tue S. Jensen
• Jeffrey J. Hebert

Phenomenology and content of the inhaled N , N -dimethyltryptamine ( N , N -DMT) experience

• David Wyndham Lawrence
• Robin Carhart-Harris
• Christopher Timmermann

A gigantic bizarre marine turtle (Testudines: Chelonioidea) from the Middle Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of South-western Europe

• Oscar Castillo-Visa
• Àngel H. Luján
• Albert Sellés

The first experience with fully endoscopic posterior cervical foraminotomy and discectomy for radiculopathy performed in Viet Duc University Hospital

• Son Ngoc Dinh
• Hung The Dinh

Mapping the “catscape” formed by a population of pet cats with outdoor access

• Richard Bischof
• Nina Rosita Hansen
• Torbjørn Haugaasen

Investigation of humans individual differences as predictors of their animal interaction styles, focused on the domestic cat

• Lauren R. Finka
• Lucia Ripari
• Marnie L. Brennan

Genesis of fecal floatation is causally linked to gut microbial colonization in mice

• Syed Mohammed Musheer Aalam
• Daphne Norma Crasta
• Nagarajan Kannan

Young children’s screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 12 countries

• Christina Bergmann
• Nevena Dimitrova
• Nivedita Mani

Cichlids and stingrays can add and subtract ‘one’ in the number space from one to five

• V. Schluessel

Elevated estradiol levels in frozen embryo transfer have different effects on pregnancy outcomes depending on the stage of transferred embryos

• Liming Ruan

Group VR experiences can produce ego attenuation and connectedness comparable to psychedelics

• David R. Glowacki
• Rhoslyn Roebuck Williams
• Mike Chatziapostolou

New therizinosaurid dinosaur from the marine Osoushinai Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Japan) provides insight for function and evolution of therizinosaur claws

• Yoshitsugu Kobayashi
• Ryuji Takasaki
• Yoshinori Hikida

Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals mental health benefits of birdlife

• Ryan Hammoud
• Stefania Tognin
• Andrea Mechelli

Long-term outcomes of cataract surgery with toric intraocular lens implantation by the type of preoperative astigmatism

• Tetsuro Oshika
• Shinichiro Nakano
• Tsutomu Kaneko

Forest fire detection system using wireless sensor networks and machine learning

• Udaya Dampage
• Lumini Bandaranayake
• Bathiya Jayasanka

Misinformation of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine hesitancy

• Sun Kyong Lee
• Juhyung Sun
• Shane Connelly

Deep language algorithms predict semantic comprehension from brain activity

• Charlotte Caucheteux
• Alexandre Gramfort
• Jean-Rémi King

Children with autism spectrum disorder show atypical electroencephalographic response to processing contextual incongruencies

• Amparo V. Márquez-García
• Vasily A. Vakorin
• Sam M. Doesburg

A generalizable one health framework for the control of zoonotic diseases

• Ria R. Ghai
• Ryan M. Wallace
• Casey Barton Behravesh

HS3ST2 expression induces the cell autonomous aggregation of tau

• M. B. Huynh
• N. Rebergue
• D. Papy-Garcia

Exceptional warming over the Barents area

• Ketil Isaksen
• Øyvind Nordli
• Tatiana Karandasheva

A new Early Cretaceous lizard in Myanmar amber with exceptionally preserved integument

• Andrej Čerňanský
• Edward L. Stanley
• Susan E. Evans

Coffee consumption and diabetic retinopathy in adults with diabetes mellitus

• Hak Jun Lee
• Daniel Duck-Jin Hwang

Shifts in the foraging tactics of crocodiles following invasion by toxic prey

• Abhilasha Aiyer
• Richard Shine
• Georgia Ward-Fear

Production of high loading insulin nanoparticles suitable for oral delivery by spray drying and freeze drying techniques

• Alberto Baldelli
• Anubhav Pratap-Singh

Cable news and COVID-19 vaccine uptake

• Matteo Pinna
• Christoph Goessmann

Estimating the time of last drinking from blood ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulphate concentrations

• Zhongyuan Guo

COVID-19 infections in infants

• Małgorzata Sobolewska-Pilarczyk
• Maria Pokorska-Śpiewak
• Małgorzata Pawłowska

COVID-19 increases the risk for the onset of atrial fibrillation in hospitalized patients

• Jakob Wollborn
• Sergey Karamnov
• Jochen D. Muehlschlegel

Childhood temperament and adulthood personality differentially predict life outcomes

• Amanda J. Wright
• Joshua J. Jackson

Antivirus applied to JAR malware detection based on runtime behaviors

• Ricardo P. Pinheiro
• Sidney M. L. Lima
• Wellington P. dos Santos

Therapeutic enzyme engineering using a generative neural network

• Andrew Giessel
• Athanasios Dousis
• Stuart Licht

Identification of genes associated with human-canine communication in canine evolution

• Akiko Tonoike
• Ken-ichi Otaki
• Miho Nagasawa

Breath chemical markers of sexual arousal in humans

• G. Pugliese
• J. Williams

A 5-km-thick reservoir with > 380,000 km 3 of magma within the ancient Earth's crust

• Rais Latypov
• Sofya Chistyakova
• Mauritz van der Merwe

Return of large fin whale feeding aggregations to historical whaling grounds in the Southern Ocean

• Helena Herr
• Sacha Viquerat
• Bettina Meyer

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Highly Cited Researchers 2023

Highly cited researchers have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research..

Each researcher selected has authored multiple Highly Cited Papers™ which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science™ over the past decade. However, citation activity is not the sole selection indicator. A preliminary list based on citation activity is then refined using qualitative analysis and expert judgement.

Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers™ are 1 in 1,000.

2023 Analysis

Experts from the Institute for Scientific Information™ provide their detailed insight into the list of Highly Cited Researchers 2023, including their geographical locations, primary tenured research institutes and a breakdown of their fields of research.

Read our analysis of the 2023 list.

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• Agricultural and Biological Sciences
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Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
• Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
• Related articles: ✔
• References: ✔
• Cited by: ✔
• Links to full text: ✔
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
• Abstracts: ✔
• Related articles: ✘
• References: ✘
• Cited by: ✘
• Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

• Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
• Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
• Export formats: BibTeX

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

• Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
• Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

• Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
• Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
• Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
• Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

• Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
• Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
• Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

More From Forbes

Harvard again tops a global ranking of universities.

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For the 13th year in a row, Harvard tops the rankings of global universities compiled by the Center ... [+] for World University Rankings. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

For the 13th year in a row, Harvard University has been ranked as the world’s leading university by the Center for World University Rankings . Now in its thirteenth year of providing such rankings, the 2024 CWUR lists the top 2000 universities out of 20,966 institutions evaluated across the globe.

This year, the global top-10 was as follows:

1. Harvard University

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

3. Stanford University

4. University of Cambridge

5. University of Oxford

6. Princeton University

7. Columbia University

WWE Raw Results, Winners And Grades On May 13, 2024

The risk of losing big on gamestop and other meme stocks, netflix sets ‘that ‘90s show’ part 2 and 3 premiere dates.

8. University of Pennsylvania

9. Yale University

10. California Institute of Technology

This marks the sixth year in a row that Harvard, MIT and Stanford have taken the first three spots in that order. In CWUR’s 2018-19 rankings, Harvard ranked first, with Stanford taking second and MIT in third place.

Of the top ten universities for 2024, eight were in the U.S. the other two were British institutions — the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

Rounding out the top-25 universities were:

11.University of Chicago

12.University of California, Berkeley

13.University of Tokyo

14.Cornell University

15.Northwestern University

16.University of Michigan

17.University of California, Los Angeles

18.Johns Hopkins University

19.PSL University (France)

20.University College London

21.Duke University

22.University of Illinois

23.University of Tornoto

24.New York University

25.University of Washington

Methodology

CWUR evaluates universities on these four factors:

Education is based on the academic success of a university’s alumni, measured relative to the university's size (25%)

Employability is determined by the professional success of a university’s alumni, measured relative to the university's size (25%)

Faculty is measured by the number of faculty members earning top academic distinctions (10%)

Research is based on a composite of four indicators:

i) Research Output — the total number of research papers (10%);

ii) High-Quality Publications — the number of research papers appearing in top-tier journals (10%);

iii) Influence — the number of research papers appearing in highly-influential journals (10%);

iv) Citations — the number of highly-cited research papers (10%).

National Comparisons

The U.S. had the most universities in the top 2000 with 329; 19 of the top 25 universities were in the U.S., and all eight of the institutions in the Ivy League placed in the top 70. China had 324 institutions in the top 2000, and Japan had 110 top-2000 institutions.

There were 92 institutions in the United Kingdom among the top 2000 schools, led by the University of Cambridge, which was judged to be the top public university in the world for the 11th year in a row. France had 73 representatives in the top 2000, while Russia had 46 institutions.

The news comes at a good time for U.S. universities, which have recently been rocked by charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, prolonged campus demonstrations over the war in Gaza, enrollment declines, and waning public confidence.

Because of a methodology that relies on quantitative indictors and that emphasizes research, CWUR’s rankings may be less subject to shifts in opinions about reputation sampled in other ranking systems. In addition, the numbers it calculates have considerable lag built into them so even those factors that might reflect public opinion, like graduates’ employability, are unlikely to reflect current attitudes.

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• Open access
• Published: 23 October 2023

What are the research priorities for strengthening public health emergency preparedness and response in Africa?

• Obinna Onwujekwe 1 , 2 ,
• Chinyere Mbachu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3936-6184 1 , 3 ,
• Joseph Okeibunor 4 ,
• Godwin Uchenna Ezema 1 , 2 , 5 ,
• Nonso Ejiofor 4 ,
• Fiona Braka 4 ,
• Adama Thiam 4 ,
• Etien Luc Koua 4 ,
• Dick Chamla 4 &
• Abdou Salam Gueye 4  

Health Research Policy and Systems volume  21 , Article number:  107 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Research evidence is needed to strengthen capacities in emergency preparedness and response (EPR). However, the absence of a clear research agenda limits the optimal use of research evidence. This paper reports on the prioritization of research questions and topics that could contribute to evidence-informed strengthening of EPR capacities in the African region.

The priority-setting consisted of desk review and stakeholder consultation workshop. Twenty-nine people participated in the workshop, including representatives from WHO regional office and EPR focal points in Africa, representatives of research institutions, and partners from Science for Africa Foundation, United Nations Children's Fund and Africa Center for Disease Control. Modified Delphi technique was used to systematically arrive at specific and cross-cutting research priorities in the three broad areas of the EPR, which are program Implementation, Clinical and Epidemiology. The research questions/topics were ranked on five-point Likert scale (1 = very low to 5 = very high) based on seven agreed-on criteria. Research priority score was calculated for each question as the mean of the criteria scores.

A total of 123 research questions comprising, 29 on Epidemiology, 22 on Clinical, 23 on program Implementation, and 49 on cross-cutting issues were ranked. The top ten research priorities were: knowledge and skills of healthcare workers in detecting and responding effectively to disease outbreaks; quality of data (accuracy, timeliness, completeness) for epidemic prone diseases; determinants of vaccine hesitancy; determinants of infection transmission among health care workers during PHE; effective measures for protecting health workers from highly infectious pathogens in PHE; strategies to improve the effectiveness of contact tracing for epidemic prone diseases; effectiveness of current case definitions as screening tools for epidemic and pandemic prone diseases; measures to strengthen national and sub-national laboratory capacity for timely disease confirmation within the Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response framework; factors affecting prompt data sharing on epidemic-prone diseases; and effective strategies for appropriate community participation in EPR.

Conclusions

The collaborative multi-stakeholder workshop produced a starting list of priority research questions and topics for strengthening EPR capacities in Africa. Action needs to be taken to continuously update the research agenda and support member States to contextualize the research priorities and commission research for timely generation and uptake of evidence.

Peer Review reports

Globally, there are multiple health emergencies comprising disease outbreaks and humanitarian conflicts and often in challenging settings. The African region especially reports over 100 public health events/emergencies (PHEs) annually [ 1 ], of which approximately 80% are emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, events, and conditions [ 2 ]. We define PHE as “any situation whose health consequences have the potential to overwhelm routine capabilities to address them due to the scale, timing or unpredictability of the situation” [ 3 ]. PHEs could be of national or international concern depending on geographic spread. Recent public health emergencies in the region include infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola, COVID-19, and the ongoing Cholera outbreak; man-made disasters such as conflicts and wars in the central African region and the Horn of African; and natural disasters such as cyclones, flooding and drought in the southern African region and the Horn of Africa [ 4 , 5 ]. These events have significant implications for global health security and universal health coverage gains [ 6 ], and are often associated with high morbidity, mortality, and significant socio-economic disruptions.

The impact of unexpected public health events can be significantly minimized if national capacities for emergency preparedness and response (EPR) are strengthened. The International Health Regulations (IHR) stipulates 13 core capacities that are required by countries to be able to effectively detect and respond to public health risks and emergencies. They are: National legislation, policy and financing; Coordination and National Focal Point communications; Surveillance; Response; Preparedness; Risk communication; Human resources; Laboratory; Points of entry; Zoonotic events; Food safety; Chemical events; and Radionuclear emergencies [ 7 ]. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has made significant efforts to facilitate the attainment of the core capacities required under the IHR, many countries in the African region still lack the minimum capacities necessary to predict, plan for, rapidly detect and respond to and recover from public health emergencies.

Evidence from research is needed to understand the drivers of public health emergencies in the African region, and to support the discovery, design and delivery of effective interventions that will contribute to strengthening capacities in EPR [ 8 , 9 ]. National Health Research Systems are disposed to generate context-specific and relevant knowledge in a timely manner [ 10 ]. Entrenching research agenda on health emergencies such as pandemics and stimulating the generation of evidence, translation and dissemination of valuable knowledge will help in enhancing emergency preparedness and response (EPR) to health emergencies. The unpredictability of the events makes it more challenging to rely on old knowledge and systems to contain them. Improving our response to these events requires information and research, this calls for a robust research agenda.

Well-defined health research priorities provide useful guidance in the strategic allocation of research resources, such that the benefits of research investment can be maximized [ 11 ]. Although there could be an endless list of research questions that could contribute to strengthening EPR capacities in SSA, the resources to undertake health research are limited. It therefore becomes necessary to identify the research questions that will generate relevant contextual evidence for programme improvements.

Failure to prioritize research questions and topics for ensuring evidence-based decision making will result in the persistence of poor health and weak preparedness against health emergencies in the region. Also, it could lead to misinterpretation of the drivers of poor health, poor articulation of the soundest interventions for strengthening country EPR capacities, and a failure to understand the strategies for optimizing the effectiveness of these interventions [ 10 ]. Such failures can accentuate the current state of weak EPR capacities in the region.

This paper reports on the prioritization of research questions and topics that provide the required evidence for evidence-informed strengthening of EPR in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). It provides new knowledge on the research priorities for strengthening EPR capacities in SSA. It also contributes to existing literature on health system research priority setting.

Study context and design

The WHO AFRO EPR Cluster launched three flagship programmes namely, Promoting Resilience of Systems for Emergencies (PROSE), Transforming African Surveillance Systems (TASS), and Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (SURGE) in early 2022. The overarching goal of the programmes is to promote health security in the African Region and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 3. The specific objectives are to support Member States to prepare for and prevent disease outbreaks and health emergencies; promptly detect, speedily report, and confirm outbreaks; strengthen and sustain capacity to promptly respond to and recover from the negative effects of outbreaks and health emergencies. To achieve these objectives, each flagship programme proposed a set of activities and plans that are aligned to the 5-year goal of rolling out all three flagships to the entire African continent. For PROSE, the goal for 2022 was to determine a clear roadmap with each of the 17 countries and begin implementation of activities. For TASS the goal was to assess the needs of the targeted countries, define implementation modalities and provide laboratory strengthening services. And for SURGE, the goal was to make sure countries have the workforce, operations, and logistics support, and the coordination mechanism needed to stop the next pandemic. An initial set of 17 countries were targeted for the roll out in 2022 with the intent to scale up to the whole of the continent. To this end, there is the need to answer some broad questions, (i) How effective are the flagships; (ii) What combinations of flagship interventions have a maximum impact on preparedness, detection, response, and health systems resilience—the game changers; (iii) What enabling environment required for implementation of flagships; and (iv) What is missing (that could have more impact).

In line with WHO’s Core Function of Leadership and support for research in health EPR, and Transformation focus area of Strengthening capacity in use of evidence for health policy and action, the process of setting the agenda for EPR research in Africa was initiated with three broad areas of focus namely implementation, clinical and epidemiological. This would ensure that there are clear research priorities that would contribute to strengthening EPR capacities in the region.

The research priority setting was implemented through a systematic process of a consensus building. The methodology of the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative [ 12 ] was used in the prioritization exercise. This systematic process of research priority setting comprises 15 steps that begin with the selection of stakeholders/participants and span through choosing a limited set of the most useful and important criteria, listing of a large number of proposed health research options, scoring of the health research options using the chosen set of criteria, and calculating overall priority scores and assigning ranks. This methodology has been used extensively in research prioritization exercises with demonstrated practicality at institutional, regional, national, international, or global levels, and it has a general appeal among policy makers, development partners and researchers, and it supports the participation of a wide range of stakeholders [ 13 , 14 ].

The specific methods that were used in the priority setting were desk review and a stakeholder workshop. The purpose of the desk review was to identify various criteria that have been used to set research priorities and how these criteria were operationalized (defined and applied). The aims of the stakeholder workshop were to identify issues in EPR to be addressed through research, and to select the research priorities based on an agreed set of assessment criteria. The entire process from participant selection to data analysis is highlighted in Fig.  1 .

Flow chart of the methodological process of research priority setting for EPR in Africa

Desk review

A rapid review of documents was conducted. The search algorithm included various combinations of the following key terms: criteria, research priority, research prioritization, research agenda, public health emergency, preparedness, response. Searches were performed on Google for relevant documents including articles, reports of expert meetings, official/public documents, and programme reports. Minutes and reports of previous research priority setting meetings were also retrieved through email exchange from experts.

The criteria for assessment of research questions were compiled with a working definition for each criterion. The starting list was adapted from relevant documents (articles and reports) on research priority setting including the guidelines that were developed by CHNRI for priority setting in health research investment and the WHO global research agenda for family planning [ 12 , 15 , 16 ]. Both activities involved systematic processes of ranking and consensus-building among experts. The need for a systematic approach to the specification of the research prioritization criteria is well documented in literature [ 12 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Table 1 shows the names and definitions of the assessment criteria.

Stakeholder consultation workshop

The stakeholder consultation workshop was a five-day hybrid event that lasted from 17 to 21 October 2022. Online participants joined the workshop through Zoom. Unique meeting invite links were sent to registered participants. To ensure meaningful participation of online participants, the virtual meeting room was unmuted during the workshop and each in-person attendee had access to a micro-phone and headset. Remote participants were intentionally and personally invited to speak or comment during the workshop, and questions or comments posted in the chat were read out by the facilitators. To give remote participants a greater presence in the room, two monitors were set up in the room and the main screen was used to project life size images of remote participants.

Three stages of consensus building were conducted: (i) Structured brainstorming to select the criteria for ranking of research questions/topics and a list of research questions based on identified needs; (ii) Two-round modified Delphi exercise to establish consensus on the most relevant/suitable criteria for assessing the research questions; and (iii) Two-round modified Delphi exercise to establish consensus on research priorities. The steps are discussed in detail in the next paragraphs.

A total of 29 experts participated in the workshop, which was held in Brazzaville, Congo (Table 2 ). The workshop participants were technical focal points from the different programme areas in EPR and the Assistant Regional Director Cluster of WHO AFRO. Others were EPR focal points from country offices, representatives of WHO EPR hubs in Dakar and Nairobi, representatives from five ministries of Health (Nigeria, Senegal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and Ethiopia), representatives from Africa Center for Disease Control, the WHO Headquarters in New York, United Nation’s Children Fund and from research institutions in SSA. The activities that were undertaken in each of the three stages of consensus building are presented in the ensuing sub-sections.

Structured brainstorming

Structured brainstorming is a systematic process which encourages active participation in contributing ideas towards a specific goal, in a non-critical or non-evaluative environment. Participants are given a fair chance to voice their ideas such that the discussion is not dominated by one person or a few people. In this workshop, structured brainstorming was used to: (i) identify (from experience or knowledge) the challenges and knowledge gaps in EPR in SSA; and (ii) generate a starting list of research questions that can contribute to addressing the challenges and gaps in the three broad research areas of the EPR.

Group work: The brainstorming exercise began with a random assignment of participants into four groups. Each group was asked to reflect on the three broad areas of the EPR programme in SSA, and identify from their experiences and/or knowledge, (i) the challenges (problems, capacity needs, etc.) that the programme faces in each broad areas; and (ii) the knowledge (research and development) gaps that need to be filled—to better understand current and future challenges, effective interventions for strengthening country EPR capacities, and potential strategies for optimizing the effectiveness of interventions.

Having generated ideas on challenges and knowledge gaps, each group was asked to articulate specific research questions (or topics) that will generate answers or solutions to the challenges identified and contribute to filling the gaps in knowledge in EPR in the region. The ideas were recorded in a uniform Microsoft Word template with comprising four broad areas—Epidemiology, Clinical, programme Implementation and Cross-cutting.

Plenary discussion: Outputs from each group were projected and presented for critical review and feedback from facilitators and participants, and for discussion in plenary. Groups received comments and suggestions for refining their ideas and research questions. Revised outputs from each group were submitted and circulated to all the participants for collation and synthesis.

Thematic collation and synthesis of ideas: Participants were reassigned to three groups—Epidemiology, Clinical and Implementation—based on their expertise, interest and/or area of work. Each group was tasked with the responsibility to collate (assemble) all challenges, knowledge gaps and research questions that are recorded in the templates for their assigned broad area (theme), and to removing any duplicates. They were additionally requested to record any cross-cutting issues and research questions that were not captured on the lists.

Generation of consolidated list of research questions: An initial list of research questions was generated by merging the updated list of research questions from each broad area. Excluding duplicates, all research questions that were generated and adopted/adapted by participants were retained.

Prioritization of assessment criteria using the Delphi technique

The Delphi technique is a consensus-building method of eliciting and refining judgements from a group of people, in order to generate knowledge that is currently not available [ 21 ]. The three main features of the technique—anonymous response, iteration and controlled feedback, and statistical group response—are designed to minimize the influence of dominant individuals in group interactions, and the biasing effects of irrelevant communication, and group pressure towards conformity. In this workshop, modified Delphi technique was used to achieve the consensus opinion of participants on, (i) the set of criteria to be used to assess research questions, and (ii) the research priorities in EPR for SSA.

Although there are several criteria that can be used to define health research priorities, stakeholders should carefully select the most suitable ones for the context of prioritization[ 17 , 22 , 23 ]. The key considerations in the study were the programme context of EPR in SSA, to ensure that the research priorities were aligned to the needs of the programme and the values of the key stakeholders in the programme.

Two rounds of Delphi exercise were undertaken to establish consensus on the most relevant/suitable criteria for assessing research questions. In round one, the starting list of 14 criteria was presented and participants were asked to rank the criteria from the most relevant or suitable to the least relevant or suitable for assessing research questions in EPR. The first round of ranking was followed by plenary discussions on the rationale for ranking the criteria.

In the second round of the modified Delphi, participants got a second chance to re-rank the 14 criteria in order of relevance or suitability. The first and second ranking exercises were through live online polling. Seventeen [ 12 ] participants voted in the first-round while 29 voted in the second round.

Prioritization of research questions

In the first round of the modified Delphi, the initial list of research questions was shown to participants (in thematic groups) and they were asked to vote to keep, remove or modify the research questions based on their assessment of the quality and relevance of the question to EPR capacities in the region. The voting was through live online polling. Research questions were ranked high (to keep), medium (to modify) and low (to remove). Consensus was set a priori at 50% agreement with any of the available options. Percent agreement is the basis for definition of consensus for many studies that adopt the Delphi method [ 24 ]. The decision for 50% consensus was made based on the suggestions of participants and the agreement that this was an acceptable cut-off for deciding which research questions should be kept, modified, or dropped before the ranking exercise.

In the second round of the modified Delphi, the condensed list of research questions was coded on the Open Data Kit software and each research question was ranked from 1 to 5 in each of the selected assessment criterion. Table 3 shows the ranking/scoring template. (A rank of 1 meant that for that criterion the research question was considered to rank very low; a score of 2 signified low ranking; a score of 3 signified moderate ranking; 4 signified high ranking; and 5 signified very high ranking) . Scores assigned to each question were tallied, by criterion and the question with the highest score was given the highest priority. Research priority score (RPS) was calculated for each research question as the mean of the criteria scores for 29 participants. The maximum achievable RPS per question is 145 (5*29) and the minimum is 29 (1*29).

Ranking of assessment criteria

The results of the ranking and re-ranking of the assessment criteria are shown in Figs.  2 and 3 , respectively. The top seven ranked criteria from the first round were feasibility, potential to have impact, answerability, public health benefits, potential for translation, affordability, and equity. After the second round of voting, feasibility, and potential to have impact retained their positions as the top two ranked criteria. Potential for translation also retained its position as the fifth criteria. General public health benefits moved up to the third ranked criteria while answerability moved down to 6 th position. Affordability and equity moved down to the bottom half of the ranks while ethical aspects and involvement of end-users occupied the 4 th and 7 th positions, respectively.

Results of the first ranking of criteria for assessing research questions

Results of the re-ranking of criteria for assessing research questions

Participants decided that since potential to have impact encompasses public health benefits, the latter should be considered a part of the former, and affordability should be included in the list of seven criteria that will be used to assess the research questions.

Generation and ranking of priority research questions.

A total of 123 research questions were generated. This comprised 29 questions on the Epidemiology broad area, 22 on the Clinical area, 23 on Implementation, and 49 on cross-cutting issues. The highest ranked question achieved a research priority score of 123.0 while the least ranked question had a score of 89.0. The condensed list of priority research questions with their corresponding RPS is attached as a supplementary file [see Additional file 1 ]. Also attached as a supplementary file is the disaggregated list of the research questions by the EPR broad areas [see Additional file 2 ].

Table 4 shows the research priority scores of the top 25 research questions and the corresponding broad areas. Nine of the questions were on the clinical broad area, and eight each were on the Epidemiology and Implementation broad areas. None of the top 25 questions was on a cross-cutting issue.

The top ten research priorities were on issues around the knowledge and skills of healthcare workers in detecting and responding effectively to disease outbreaks; quality of data (accuracy, timeliness, completeness) for epidemic prone diseases; determinants of vaccine hesitancy; determinants of infection transmission among health care workers during PHE; effective measures for protecting health workers from highly infectious pathogens in PHE; strategies to improve the effectiveness of contact tracing for epidemic prone diseases; effectiveness of current case definitions as screening tools for epidemic and pandemic prone diseases; measures to strengthen national and sub-national laboratory capacity for timely disease confirmation within the Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response framework; factors affecting prompt data sharing on epidemic-prone diseases; and effective strategies for appropriate community participation in EPR. Other top research priorities are as shown in Table 4 .

Table 5 shows the disaggregated and total proportions of research questions that achieved ≥ 75% (high), 50–75% (medium) or < 50% (low) research priority scores out of the maximum achievable research priority score (which is 145).

A total of 52 (42.28%) research questions had research priority scores that were at least 75% of the maximum achievable score. Most of the research questions on the clinical broad area (72.73%) and the implementation broad area (60.87%) had high research priority scores. Whereas 42.28% of the questions on epidemiology had high research priority scores. Only 16.33% of the cross-cutting research questions achieved high research priority scores. None of the research questions had a research priority score that was less than 50% of the maximum achievable score. This implies that all the research questions were judged to be of above average priority to the stakeholders.

Our findings show that within the context of WHO AFRO’s Emergency Preparedness Programme, stakeholders generated a long list of research questions and topics that they adjudged to be relevant for strengthening capacities for EPR within the African region. However, to provide valuable direction for the allocation of public and private research funds, the stakeholders had to decide, through consensus-building, which research questions were more or less important.

Our study shows that consulting with a diverse group of stakeholders ensures that differing and distinct views and perceptions are brought to the fore. The importance of stakeholder engagement in setting research priorities as also reported elsewhere [ 12 , 23 ]. It is important that the key stakeholders are involved in the research priority setting and that their interests are taken into consideration in the prioritization process. However, the difficult task of managing the often-conflicting interests of stakeholders is acknowledged, particularly when there is uneven distribution of power among the stakeholders. Hence, in setting the EPR research priorities, the facilitators employed a mix of strategies for effective stakeholder engagement, including, the purposive selection of participants, and consensus-building through iterations of group creativity activities and individual ranking exercises.

The process of determining the strategic importance of research questions could be tedious for stakeholders if there are no clear criteria for assessment. The specification of criteria enables a more rational process of priority setting, particularly where the research questions are brand new [ 20 , 22 ]. In our research priority setting exercise, the use of a systematic and transparent approach of consensus-building to define the set of criteria for assessing the newly formed EPR research questions was a plausible approach to ensure widespread consensus and ownership of the final research priorities by all the participants. Adopting a methodologically transparent approach in consensus-building aligns with existing literature on stakeholder management [ 25 ]. Methodological transparency is closely tied to trust and credibility in consensus-building processes [ 25 ]. Stakeholders are more likely to trust the outcomes of a consensus-building effort when they can clearly understand and evaluate the methods used and can see how decisions are made.

The top twenty-five research questions that were prioritized for strengthening EPR capacities in the African region align with the global capacity needs for effective EPR [ 26 , 27 ]. Other research priorities that resonate with exiting literature include understanding the determinants of vaccine hesitancy, strengthening community participation in EPR, protection of health workers from highly infectious pathogens during PHE, and strengthening national and sub-national laboratory capacity for timely disease confirmation.

These research priorities address some of the demand- and supply-side barriers to effective EPR in the African region, the knowledge gaps in EPR, and some recommended strategies for effective management of PHE [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. Although the Emergency Preparedness Programme of WHO AFRO aims to strengthen country capacities in emergency preparedness and response across the three broad areas of the Programme, attention should also be paid to fundamental health systems issues that underline overall health system resilience and responsiveness during public health emergencies.

The major limitations of research priority setting are, (i) the likelihood of excluding some key stakeholders in the prioritization process and missing some relevant research questions; (ii) the potential influence of dominant individuals; (iii) the biasing effects of irrelevant reflections from dominant speakers; and (iv) the potential to conform to the popular opinion. In this prioritization exercise, stakeholders at the frontlines of EPR in the AFRO member states were not included in the exercise. The EPR office of WHO AFRO is planning some webinar sessions to get additional inputs on research priorities from more stakeholders and all member states. A face-to-face validation workshop is also being planned and this will engage a wider range of stakeholders. The use of modified Delphi technique minimized the effects of the other limitations and ensured that each participant’s opinion contributed to the final research priorities.

The stakeholder consultation workshop was successful in developing a starting set of research priorities for EPR in Africa. The prioritization exercise led to the selection of the most useful research questions for strengthening EPR capacities in SSA. The next steps would be to get the WHO member countries in the region to buy into these research priorities, and to subsequently develop context-specific research agenda, implementation frameworks and operational guidelines. Action needs to be taken to continuously update the research agenda so that the research priorities are time and context sensitive.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

Abbreviations

African Regional Office

• Emergency preparedness and response

Public health events/emergencies

Sub-Saharan Africa

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Acknowledgements

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The research priority setting workshop was funded by the Emergency Preparedness Flagship Programme of the WHO. The views expressed in the manuscript are solely of the authors and not of the funder.

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Obinna Onwujekwe, Chinyere Mbachu & Godwin Uchenna Ezema

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Obinna Onwujekwe & Godwin Uchenna Ezema

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Chinyere Mbachu

World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa (AFRO), Brazzaville, Congo

Joseph Okeibunor, Nonso Ejiofor, Fiona Braka, Adama Thiam, Etien Luc Koua, Dick Chamla & Abdou Salam Gueye

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OO and CM designed the techniques. OO, CM and GUE analyzed and interpreted the data. OO, CM, JO and NE contributed to the production of the first draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1..

Comprehensive list of research questions and topics and corresponding Research Priority Scores in descending order of ranking

Additional file 2.

Disaggregated list of research questions and topics by EPR broad areas, and corresponding Research Priority Scores

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Onwujekwe, O., Mbachu, C., Okeibunor, J. et al. What are the research priorities for strengthening public health emergency preparedness and response in Africa?. Health Res Policy Sys 21 , 107 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01059-6

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01059-6

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A novel integrated methodology for screening, assessment and ranking of promising oilfields for polymer floods

Due to the deterioration of the structure of oil reserves, the demand for enhanced oil recovery technologies is increasing every year. These technologies are usually classified into the following: Chemical, gas, thermal and combined enhance oil recovery methods. Among the chemical methods, polymer flooding stands out. It has been actively studied since the middle of the last century and currently numbers hundreds of completed projects around the world. Despite the relatively long study period and the number of publications dedicated to polymer flooding, there is still a range of aspects requiring research and development as well as field testing. One of the crucial issues at the preparation stage of a polymer flooding project is necessity to select oilfield or pilot area to achieve the best possible technological and economic efficiency results. This article provides analysis of the key factors influencing effectiveness of polymer flooding implementation. The paper reflects historical evolution, i.e. expansion of the technology applicability limits. Their current values have been verified, based on the analysis of the experience of implementing the technology in extreme conditions. Applicability criteria has been established as well for the polymer flooding development. The paper includes development of a uniquely designed integrated methodology for screening, assessment and ranking of promising objects for the technology implementation. The methodology is designed on the basis of a background review of completed projects, as well as on the expertise of the specialists involved in the development and scientific support of chemical enhanced oil recovery projects implementation. The purpose of the methodology is to create a basic universal tool for an express assessment of the prospects for using polymer flooding in different fields, which a wide range of specialists in the oil and gas industry could apply.

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Acknowledgements.

The authors express their gratitude to the experts, representatives of various oil and gas companies and specialists in chemical EOR, who contributed their valuable insights and knowledge to this research.

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A (mostly) scientific ranking of takeout containers – from worst to best for the environment

One way to mitigate the eco-guilt of a to-go habit is to choose restaurants that serve food in sustainable containers

G etting restaurant meals to go often comes with a side of guilt: “Did I need to supersize? I should have saved the money and cooked at home . ” And the final sting, perhaps muttered while hovering over the trash and recycling bins deciding where to toss the empty boxes: “Oh, the waste.”

Dietary and budgeting concerns notwithstanding, one way to mitigate the environmental impact (or the eco-guilt) of a takeout habit is to choose restaurants that serve their food in more sustainable containers.

“I’m a firm believer in ‘every little bit counts’,” said Sarah Currie-Halpern, co-founder of waste reduction consultancy Think Zero. “There’s 8 billion people on this planet. If even a couple million are doing something more sustainable, that’s a notch forward in the right direction.”

Of course, it’s never as easy as it seems. “One material may be worse from a greenhouse gas point of view and another material may be worse from a water-use point of view,” said Elaine Blatt, a senior analyst at the Oregon department of environmental quality (DEQ). “The bottom line is that we use too much of this stuff generally. That’s all we can say with any certainty.”

But there is some information you can use to make a delivery decision you can feel good about. Or, at least, less bad about. Here’s our (mostly) scientific ranking, from worst to best.

7. Compostable serveware

The most eco-friendly-sounding options are anything but. In fact, they’re problematic from beginning to end, and a growing scourge of sustainability experts. It requires huge amounts of pesticides, energy and water to cultivate corn and other plants for bioplastic cups or fiber-based bowls. “Some of that could be used to feed hungry people and animals rather than making packaging,” Currie-Halpern said.

“You’re growing food-like substances to make them into materials that you’re going to put other stuff in and then throw away,” Blatt said. When Oregon’s DEQ did an assessment in 2018, it found that compostable materials almost always had a greater environmental impact than the papers and plastics they were meant to replace.

Compostable material doesn’t even live up to its name: very little of it actually gets composted. Compostable serveware can’t be tossed in a backyard compost pile and many composting companies don’t accept it because they’ve found that the products don’t break down well enough. New research shows they disintegrate better than previously thought, but most people don’t have access to industrial facilities that can handle them.

Then there’s the lookalike problem. Compostable fiber containers often wind up in the recycling bin – even though they’re not recyclable – while conventional cardboard gets tossed in with food scraps. “Compostable material just confuses people,” Blatt said.

6. Some plastic and paperboard packaging

Some plastics used in food service containers, such as number 6 (polystyrene), generally are not recyclable. Nor are soft plastics, like film labels and straws, Currie-Halpern said: “If you can puncture it with a pen, that’s always going to be trash.”

The same goes for classic Chinese takeout boxes and similar containers, since they’re coated with plastic to prevent leaking. It is difficult or impossible to separate out the paper, so most places don’t bother collecting them for recycling. As Blatt says, though, recyclability isn’t always a good test of a package’s environmental impact.

5. Clear, rigid plastic boxes, cups and clamshells

Recyclability isn’t always a good indicator of environmental friendliness, since it tells you nothing about how a piece of packaging was manufactured. But among different types of plastics, those with a number 1 (PET or PETE) or 2 (HDPE) inside the chasing arrows – both of which are common in food packaging – are more valuable to recyclers than plastics with higher numbers. Widely used number 5 (polypropylene or PP) plastics are becoming more recyclable and valuable, too. This means they’re more likely to actually be recycled.

Unless they’re black. “There’s not much demand right now for black PET, so a very small percentage of collection programs nationwide will accept the material for recycling,” said Justin Gast, a materials management specialist with Oregon’s DEQ. “Unfortunately, we still see a lot of black plastic used in grocery and fast food settings.”

4. Recycled containers

While it can be difficult to compare the environmental impacts of different materials, here’s where it can be easier. Containers made from recycled materials are better than ones that aren’t. So if one says it’s made of 40% recycled content, that’s better than the same type of container that has none.

3. Aluminum boxes

The old-school foil boxes with crimped edges earn high marks for being light and widely accepted in curbside recycling pickup. Plus, Currie-Halpern added, there’s a robust market for recycled aluminum, so there’s a chance they were made with post-consumer material. The tops add a trickier dimension. Number 1 or 2 plastic lids are recyclable, whereas a cardboard lid that’s white on top and metallic on the bottom probably isn’t, by dint of being made of two materials that are impossible to separate. But focusing on disposal misses the point, Blatt stressed. How they’re made, whether their manufacture was powered by renewable energy, and the disposal options in the city or town where they’re used all factor in.

2. Paper and foil wraps, pizza boxes

Less is more when it comes to packaging. Weight matters, and lighter materials can be manufactured and transported with fewer emissions. A sandwich wrapper lined with plasticky coating or foil, which makes it difficult or impossible to recycle, is likely still better for the environment overall than a bulkier recyclable container. “It has a lot less material embodied in it and the production of that material is actually lower impact than the production of the recyclable plastic,” Blatt explained. “Just because something is labeled as recyclable doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better for the environment.” Classic pizza boxes combine the best of both attributes: they’re the right size for their contents and are recyclable virtually everywhere. (Pro tip: if your pie leaked a lot of oil, rip off the top for recycling and put the greasy half in the trash.)

1. Reusable containers

“Reusable is always your best option, no matter what,” Currie-Halpern said. Even accounting for the thicker material and water and energy needed to wash them, reusable coffee cups, salad bowls and boxes require fewer resources, produce fewer greenhouse gases and pollute the environment less than disposables, as long as they’re actually reused. The break-even point could be as little as two uses, or more than 100.

A growing number of companies in cities like San Francisco, Denver and New York are making it possible for restaurants to serve takeout and delivery meals in durable, washable, reusable containers . Large entertainment venues, such as the new Sphere in Las Vegas, and Portland, Oregon’s Moda Center, where the Trail Blazers play basketball, have begun serving drinks in returnable cups. University dining halls across the country are also making reusables the go-to for to-go.

When in doubt, throw it out

“Sometimes putting stuff in the garbage is the best place for it to go,” Blatt said, underscoring that what people do with their dirty takeout containers is not the most important consideration. The disposal of packaging is just a small part of its environmental footprint, especially compared with the enormous environmental footprint of food production.

“While it’s good to be concerned about your takeout container,” she said, “I want people who get takeout in a container to eat the food in the container and not let it go to waste.”

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ASU in top 1% of international university ranking list

Global 2000 list rates more than 20k universities for education, employability, faculty, research.

Professor Kelly Knudson points to locations where specimens have been collected in the archaeological chemistry laboratory in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. ASU has been ranked in the top 1% of universities world wide for education, employability, faculty and research. Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU

Arizona State University has been ranked in the top 1% of nearly 21,000 universities worldwide for education, employability, faculty and research, according to the 2024 edition of the Global 2000 list by the Center for World University Rankings.

The center uses objective indicators to rank 20,966 universities around the world. The rankings were released May 13.

Overall, ASU ranks 194th out of the total 20,966 institutions — in the top 1% — and 67th in the U.S.

For employability, ASU ranked 649th, or the top 5%.

Other rankings for ASU are:

•Regional rank (U.S. and Canada): 74th.

•Research rank: 150 th  — in the top 1%.

•Faculty rank: 266th — in the top 2%.

•Education rank: 451st — in the top 3%.

ASU ranked higher than Georgetown University, University of Illinois – Chicago, and Florida State University.

“ASU’s global recognition is a reflection of our innovative faculty members, their excellence in research and their impact on our younger generations as they prepare to help solve some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said Sally C. Morton, executive vice president of ASU's Knowledge Enterprise.

“This worldwide acknowledgment is a testament to the inventive spirit and visionary approach of our faculty, staff and students who collectively assume responsibility for the overall health of our global community.”

The Center for World University Rankings publishes the largest academic rankings of global universities. The rankings do not rely on surveys, instead using objective data points.

The center uses seven objective and outcome-based indicators grouped into four areas to rank the universities:

•One-quarter of the ranking score is education — based on the academic success of a university’s alumni, measured relative to the university's size.

•Another one-quarter is employability, based on the professional success of alumni, measured relative to the university's size.

•Research is worth 40% of the score and is measured this way: output, measured by the total number of research articles, 10%; high-quality publications, which is the number of research articles appearing in top-tier journals, 10%; influence, or the number of research articles appearing in highly influential journals, 10%; and the number of highly cited research articles, 10%.

•The center also measures the number of faculty members who have received top academic distinctions, for 10% of the score.

The Center for World University Rankings is a consulting organization providing policy advice, strategic insights and consulting services to governments and universities to improve educational and research outcomes. The global university rankings are known for objectivity, transparency and consistency.

ASU was also recently  rated highly for employability : The Global Employability University Ranking and Survey ranked ASU 34th among international universities and 13th among U.S. institutions for employable graduates.

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Better Siri is coming: what Apple’s research says about its AI plans

Apple hasn’t talked too much about ai so far — but it’s been working on stuff. a lot of stuff..

By David Pierce , editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

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It would be easy to think that Apple is late to the game on AI. Since late 2022, when ChatGPT took the world by storm, most of Apple’s competitors have fallen over themselves to catch up. While Apple has certainly talked about AI and even released some products with AI in mind, it seemed to be dipping a toe in rather than diving in headfirst.

But over the last few months, rumors and reports have suggested that Apple has, in fact, just been biding its time, waiting to make its move. There have been reports in recent weeks that Apple is talking to both OpenAI and Google about powering some of its AI features, and the company has also been working on its own model, called Ajax .

If you look through Apple’s published AI research, a picture starts to develop of how Apple’s approach to AI might come to life. Now, obviously, making product assumptions based on research papers is a deeply inexact science — the line from research to store shelves is windy and full of potholes. But you can at least get a sense of what the company is thinking about — and how its AI features might work when Apple starts to talk about them at its annual developer conference, WWDC, in June.

Smaller, more efficient models

I suspect you and I are hoping for the same thing here: Better Siri. And it looks very much like Better Siri is coming! There’s an assumption in a lot of Apple’s research (and in a lot of the tech industry, the world, and everywhere) that large language models will immediately make virtual assistants better and smarter. For Apple, getting to Better Siri means making those models as fast as possible — and making sure they’re everywhere.

In iOS 18, Apple plans to have all its AI features running on an on-device, fully offline model, Bloomberg recently reported . It’s tough to build a good multipurpose model even when you have a network of data centers and thousands of state-of-the-art GPUs — it’s drastically harder to do it with only the guts inside your smartphone. So Apple’s having to get creative.

In a paper called “ LLM in a flash: Efficient Large Language Model Inference with Limited Memory ” (all these papers have really boring titles but are really interesting, I promise!), researchers devised a system for storing a model’s data, which is usually stored on your device’s RAM, on the SSD instead. “We have demonstrated the ability to run LLMs up to twice the size of available DRAM [on the SSD],” the researchers wrote, “achieving an acceleration in inference speed by 4-5x compared to traditional loading methods in CPU, and 20-25x in GPU.” By taking advantage of the most inexpensive and available storage on your device, they found, the models can run faster and more efficiently. 

Apple’s researchers also created a system called EELBERT that can essentially compress an LLM into a much smaller size without making it meaningfully worse. Their compressed take on Google’s Bert model was 15 times smaller — only 1.2 megabytes — and saw only a 4 percent reduction in quality. It did come with some latency tradeoffs, though.

In general, Apple is pushing to solve a core tension in the model world: the bigger a model gets, the better and more useful it can be, but also the more unwieldy, power-hungry, and slow it can become. Like so many others, the company is trying to find the right balance between all those things while also looking for a way to have it all.

Siri, but good

A lot of what we talk about when we talk about AI products is virtual assistants — assistants that know things, that can remind us of things, that can answer questions, and get stuff done on our behalf. So it’s not exactly shocking that a lot of Apple’s AI research boils down to a single question: what if Siri was really, really, really good?

A group of Apple researchers has been working on a way to use Siri without needing to use a wake word at all; instead of listening for “Hey Siri” or “Siri,” the device might be able to simply intuit whether you’re talking to it. “This problem is significantly more challenging than voice trigger detection,” the researchers did acknowledge, “since there might not be a leading trigger phrase that marks the beginning of a voice command.” That might be why another group of researchers developed a system to more accurately detect wake words . Another paper trained a model to better understand rare words, which are often not well understood by assistants.

In both cases, the appeal of an LLM is that it can, in theory, process much more information much more quickly. In the wake-word paper, for instance, the researchers found that by not trying to discard all unnecessary sound but, instead, feeding it all to the model and letting it process what does and doesn’t matter, the wake word worked far more reliably.

Once Siri hears you, Apple’s doing a bunch of work to make sure it understands and communicates better. In one paper, it developed a system called STEER (which stands for Semantic Turn Extension-Expansion Recognition, so we’ll go with STEER) that aims to improve your back-and-forth communication with an assistant by trying to figure out when you’re asking a follow-up question and when you’re asking a new one. In another, it uses LLMs to better understand “ambiguous queries” to figure out what you mean no matter how you say it. “In uncertain circumstances,” they wrote, “intelligent conversational agents may need to take the initiative to reduce their uncertainty by asking good questions proactively, thereby solving problems more effectively.” Another paper aims to help with that, too: researchers used LLMs to make assistants less verbose and more understandable when they’re generating answers.

AI in health, image editors, in your Memojis

Whenever Apple does talk publicly about AI, it tends to focus less on raw technological might and more on the day-to-day stuff AI can actually do for you. So, while there’s a lot of focus on Siri — especially as Apple looks to compete with devices like the Humane AI Pin, the Rabbit R1, and Google’s ongoing smashing of Gemini into all of Android — there are plenty of other ways Apple seems to see AI being useful.

One obvious place for Apple to focus is on health: LLMs could, in theory, help wade through the oceans of biometric data collected by your various devices and help you make sense of it all. So, Apple has been researching how to collect and collate all of your motion data, how to use gait recognition and your headphones to identify you, and how to track and understand your heart rate data. Apple also created and released “the largest multi-device multi-location sensor-based human activity dataset” available after collecting data from 50 participants with multiple on-body sensors.

Apple also seems to imagine AI as a creative tool. For one paper, researchers interviewed a bunch of animators, designers, and engineers and built a system called Keyframer that “enable[s] users to iteratively construct and refine generated designs.” Instead of typing in a prompt and getting an image, then typing another prompt to get another image, you start with a prompt but then get a toolkit to tweak and refine parts of the image to your liking. You could imagine this kind of back-and-forth artistic process showing up anywhere from the Memoji creator to some of Apple’s more professional artistic tools.

In another paper , Apple describes a tool called MGIE that lets you edit an image just by describing the edits you want to make. (“Make the sky more blue,” “make my face less weird,” “add some rocks,” that sort of thing.) “Instead of brief but ambiguous guidance, MGIE derives explicit visual-aware intention and leads to reasonable image editing,” the researchers wrote. Its initial experiments weren’t perfect, but they were impressive.

We might even get some AI in Apple Music: for a paper called “ Resource-constrained Stereo Singing Voice Cancellation ,” researchers explored ways to separate voices from instruments in songs — which could come in handy if Apple wants to give people tools to, say, remix songs the way you can on TikTok or Instagram.

Over time, I’d bet this is the kind of stuff you’ll see Apple lean into, especially on iOS. Some of it Apple will build into its own apps; some it will offer to third-party developers as APIs. (The recent Journaling Suggestions feature is probably a good guide to how that might work.) Apple has always trumpeted its hardware capabilities, particularly compared to your average Android device; pairing all that horsepower with on-device, privacy-focused AI could be a big differentiator.

But if you want to see the biggest, most ambitious AI thing going at Apple, you need to know about Ferret . Ferret is a multi-modal large language model that can take instructions, focus on something specific you’ve circled or otherwise selected, and understand the world around it. It’s designed for the now-normal AI use case of asking a device about the world around you, but it might also be able to understand what’s on your screen. In the Ferret paper, researchers show that it could help you navigate apps, answer questions about App Store ratings, describe what you’re looking at, and more. This has really exciting implications for accessibility but could also completely change the way you use your phone — and your Vision Pro and / or smart glasses someday.

We’re getting way ahead of ourselves here, but you can imagine how this would work with some of the other stuff Apple is working on. A Siri that can understand what you want, paired with a device that can see and understand everything that’s happening on your display, is a phone that can literally use itself. Apple wouldn’t need deep integrations with everything; it could simply run the apps and tap the right buttons automatically. 

Again, all this is just research, and for all of it to work well starting this spring would be a legitimately unheard-of technical achievement. (I mean, you’ve tried chatbots — you know they’re not great.) But I’d bet you anything we’re going to get some big AI announcements at WWDC. Apple CEO Tim Cook even teased as much in February, and basically promised it on this week’s earnings call. And two things are very clear: Apple is very much in the AI race, and it might amount to a total overhaul of the iPhone. Heck, you might even start willingly using Siri! And that would be quite the accomplishment.

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