Joint Research Centre: scientific excellence for EU policy

Our impact on science and policy

As the in-house research centre of the European Commission, we are unique in combining scientific excellence with direct policy support.

We constantly measure and assess our impact on science, policy, and society. The results show that we are delivering on our mission, providing excellent science for European policymaking to positively impact society. 

JRC publications are amongst the most cited globally

Nearly 4 out of 100

JRC publications belongs to the top 1% most cited globally

Almost 1 out of 4

JRC publications belongs to the top 10% most cited globally

We are on par with the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford in terms of the citation impact of our publications in scientific journals.

JRC peer-reviewed publications are 2.26 times more cited than the global average.

3.7% of the JRC’s scientific publications released between 2018 and 2022 belong to the globally most cited top 1% of all peer-reviewed publications. For the same period, 24.5% of JRC publications are in the global top 10%.

Compare the JRC’s citation impact with other leading science and science for policy institutions.

All our research fields have an above-the-average share in the globally most cited 1% and 10%

JRC publications in the field of Environment and climate change have the highest share in the global top 1% and 10% most cited. At the same time, all fields of JRC research have a higher-than-average share in these categories.

See on the graphs how much of our publications across the different fields make it to the globally most cited 1% and 10%.

We lead on European policy impact

In 2020, in EU policy documents, JRC publications received on average the most citations among leading science for policy institutions. Overall, JRC studies were cited 360 times that year in EU policy documents, which is one of the highest values also in absolute terms. When we consider the JRC’s smaller size and our correspondingly lower number of publications, we see that we lead on the EU policy impact of our publications.

See on the graphs how many times EU policy documents referred to the work of the JRC and other leading science for policy organisations, also relative to the different volumes of scientific publications of these institutions.

Science is global. We cooperate worldwide

82% of all JRC peer-reviewed publications are co-authored with non-JRC researchers.

The network of JRC co-authors covers all EU countries and the whole globe. In 2018-2022, JRC scientists had worked with co-authors from more than 3 200 organisations in 134 countries. The most common countries for cooperation are the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and China.

We are close to 100% open access

We believe in transparency and open science. Over the last years, the share of our open access publications (where a JRC researcher is the first or corresponding author) had constantly increased, reaching 95% in 2022.

We generate strong public interest in our work

We monitor media articles for mentions of the Joint Research Centre and its work. We see a strong and growing media interest in our work, especially within Europe. Most media mentions focus on our disaster risk management work on forest fires, droughts, and floods.

See on the graph how many media mentions we identified each year since 2015.

How do we measure our impact?

We know about the limits of citation metrics. Thus, we deploy different methods to assess our impact and we look beyond scientific citations.

We look at JRC references in EU policy documents
This has been included in the most recent edition of JRC Scientific Excellence reports (2024, 2021 and 2019).
We assess how JRC Scientific work is supporting policy
with in-depth case studies of our work, to better understand our policy and societal impact in a qualitative way.
We monitor our media impact
counting mentions by media outlets and qualitatively assessing the tone of the media coverage.