Mike Thelwall

Biographic Data

ID284876
NAMEMike Thelwall
GIVEN NAMESMike
FAMILY NAMEThelwall
SIGNATURETHELWALL M
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Wolverhampton
ORCID0000-0001-6065-205X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS111
TOTAL CITATIONS159
AUTHOR COUNT110
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2000
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX7

  • Can artificial intelligence predict the most important contemporary philosophers? updating and extending Collins’ ‘sociology of philosophies’

    Open AccessRalph Schroeder, Mike Thelwall et al.ARTICLETheory and Society2026

    Randall Collins’ massive book ‘Sociology of Philosophies’ (1998) is, as the subtitle has it, a ‘global theory of intellectual change’. To explain why certain figures became influential thinkers, Collins puts forward the sociological principles that made their success possible. These include their positions in academic networks and teacher-pupil chains. His book ends in the middle of the 20th century because after that time, the ‘eminent’ (Collins…

  • How do large language models and reference analysis differ in tracing disciplinary contributions to interdisciplinary fields

    Open AccessMing Cheng, Lin Zhang et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2026

  • How much are LLMs changing the language of academic papers after ChatGPT? A multi-database and full text analysis

    Open AccessKayvan Kousha, Mike ThelwallARTICLEScientometrics2026

    This study investigates how Large Language Models (LLMs) are influencing the language of academic papers by tracking 12 LLM-associated terms across six major scholarly databases (Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), Dimensions, and OpenAlex) from 2015 to 2024. Using over 2.4 million PMC open-access publications (2021–July 2025), we also analysed full texts to assess changes in the frequency and co-occurrence of these terms before…

  • Can ChatGPT evaluate research environments? Evidence from REF2021

    Open AccessKayvan Kousha, Mike Thelwall et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2026

  • Can small and reasoning large language models score journal articles for research quality and do averaging and few-shot help

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Ehsan MohammadiARTICLEScientometrics2026

    Previous research has shown that journal article quality ratings from the cloud based Large Language Model (LLM) families ChatGPT and Gemini and the medium sized open weights LLM Gemma3 27b correlate moderately with expert research quality scores. This article assesses whether other medium sized LLMs, smaller LLMs, and reasoning models have similar abilities. This is tested with Gemma3 variants, Llama4 Scout, Qwen3, Magistral Small and DeepSeek R…

  • Large language models and responsible research evaluation: An extension of the Leiden Manifesto

    Open AccessMike ThelwallARTICLEScientometrics2026

    Research evaluators and scientometricians sometimes promote the message of responsible bibliometrics through initiatives like the Leiden Manifesto, but these do not mention Large Language Models (LLMs). Since there is evidence that LLMs can make quality predictions for journal articles that correlate more strongly with expert judgements than do citation-based indicators in most fields, they may start to supplement or replace citation-based indica…

  • A global south strategy for evaluating research value with ChatGPT

    Open AccessRobin Nunkoo, Mike ThelwallARTICLEQuantitative Science Studies2026

    Research evaluation is important for appointments, promotions, departmental assessments, and national science strategy monitoring. While Global North universities often have sufficient senior researchers for effective peer review and enough trust in citation data to use them for supporting indicators, the same is less likely to be true in the Global South. Moreover, Global South research priorities may not align well with citation-based indicator…

  • Evaluating the quality of tourism research using ChatGPT

    Mike Thelwall, Robin NunkooARTICLECurrent Issues in Tourism2025

    This article evaluates the quality of tourism research by comparing the results obtained from citation analysis with those obtained from ChatGPT quality scores based on the Research Excellence Framework criteria, applied to 50 of the largest tourism and leisure journals. Whilst there was an article-level weak correlation between normalised citation rates and normalised ChatGPT scores, there was a moderately strong journal-level correlation betwee…

  • Research evaluation with ChatGPT: Is it age, country, length, or field biased

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Zeyneb KurtARTICLEScientometrics2025

    Some research now suggests that ChatGPT can estimate the quality of journal articles from their titles and abstracts. This has created the possibility to use ChatGPT quality scores, perhaps alongside citation-based formulae, to support peer review for research evaluation. Nevertheless, ChatGPT’s internal processes are effectively opaque, despite it writing a report to support its scores, and its biases are unknown. This article investigates wheth…

  • Evaluating the predictive capacity of ChatGPT for academic peer review outcomes across multiple platforms

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Abdallah YaghiARTICLEScientometrics2025

    Academic peer review is at the heart of scientific quality control, yet the process is slow and time-consuming. Technology that can predict peer review outcomes may help with this, for example by fast-tracking desk rejection decisions. While previous studies have demonstrated that Large Language Models (LLMs) can predict peer review outcomes to some extent, this paper introduces two new contexts and employs a more robust method—averaging multiple…

  • Research quality evaluation by AI in the era of large language models: Advantages, disadvantages, and systemic effects – An opinion paper

    Open AccessMike ThelwallARTICLEScientometrics2025

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies like ChatGPT now threaten bibliometrics as the primary generators of research quality indicators. They are already used in at least one research quality evaluation system and evidence suggests that they are used informally by many peer reviewers. Since harnessing bibliometrics to support research evaluation continues to be controversial, this article reviews the corresponding advantages and disadvantages …

  • Implicit and explicit research quality score probabilities from ChatGPT

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Yunhan YangARTICLEQuantitative Science Studies2025

    The large language model (LLM) ChatGPT’s quality scores for journal articles correlate more strongly with human judgments than some citation-based indicators in most fields. Averaging multiple ChatGPT scores improves the results, apparently exploiting its internal probability model. To leverage these probabilities, we test two novel strategies: requesting percentage likelihoods for scores and extracting the probabilities of alternative tokens in …

  • The accuracy of field classifications for journals in Scopus

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Stephen PinfieldARTICLEScientometrics2024

    Journal field classifications in Scopus are used for citation-based indicators and by authors choosing appropriate journals to submit to. Whilst prior research has found that Scopus categories are occasionally misleading, it is not known how this varies for different journal types. In response, we assessed whether specialist, cross-field and general academic journals sometimes have publication practices that do not match their Scopus classificati…

  • How do museums and galleries help academics create societal impact? An analysis of the UK REF2021 impact case studies

    Open AccessKayvan Kousha, Emma Stuart et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2024

  • Identifying disability-related barriers to academic employment

    Open AccessJonathan M Levitt, Mike Thelwall et al.ARTICLEStudies in Higher Education2024

    This study sought to increase understanding on barriers to securing academic employment met by people with disabilities. Lindsay and Fuentes [2022. “It is Time to Address Ableism in Academia: A Systematic Review of the Experiences and Impact of Ableism among Faculty and Staff.” Disabilities 2 (2): 178–203] pointed out the paucity of research on disability in academia. We surveyed over 5,000 authors of scholarly articles with ‘disab’ in the title …

  • Academic Publishing in Small Island Developing States: Does University Research Support Development

    Open AccessRobin Nunkoo, Mike Thelwall et al.ARTICLEHigher Education Policy2024References: 18

  • What is research funding, how does it influence research, and how is it recorded? Key dimensions of variation

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Subreena Simrick et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2023

    Evaluating the effects of some or all academic research funding is difficult because of the many different and overlapping sources, types, and scopes. It is therefore important to identify the key aspects of research funding so that funders and others assessing its value do not overlook them. This article outlines 18 dimensions through which funding varies substantially, as well as three funding records facets. For each dimension, a list of commo…

  • In which fields do higher impact journals publish higher quality articles

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Kayvan Kousha et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2023

  • Are successful co-authors more important than first authors for publishing academic journal articles

    Open AccessMike ThelwallARTICLEScientometrics2023

  • Is research funding always beneficial? A cross-disciplinary analysis of U.K. research 2014–20

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Kayvan Kousha et al.ARTICLEQuantitative Science Studies2023

    Although funding is essential for some types of research and beneficial for others, it may constrain academic choice and creativity. Thus, it is important to check whether it ever seems unnecessary. Here we investigate whether funded U.K. research tends to be higher quality in all fields and for all major research funders. Based on peer review quality scores for 113,877 articles from all fields in the U.K.’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 20…

  • Predicting article quality scores with machine learning: The U.K. Research Excellence Framework

    Open AccessMike Thelwall, Kayvan Kousha et al.ARTICLEQuantitative Science Studies2023

    National research evaluation initiatives and incentive schemes choose between simplistic quantitative indicators and time-consuming peer/expert review, sometimes supported by bibliometrics. Here we assess whether machine learning could provide a third alternative, estimating article quality using more multiple bibliometric and metadata inputs. We investigated this using provisional three-level REF2021 peer review scores for 84,966 articles submit…

  • The value(s) of social media rituals: A cross-cultural analysis of New Year’s resolutions

    Open AccessBlake Hallinan, Bumsoo Kim et al.ARTICLEInformation Communication & Society2023

    2000), we compare discursive topics, modes of ritual participation, and the values expressed in resolutions. Our findings indicate both that the ritual crosses cultures and that there are language-specific dynamics that do not map neatly onto established divisions between 'Eastern' and 'Western' value orientations. Instead, we identify three underlying tensions organizing the articulation of values: self-acceptance vs. self-improvement, public vs…

  • Academic LGBTQ+ Terminology 1900-2021: Increasing Variety, Increasing Inclusivity

    Mike Thelwall, T J Devonport et al.ARTICLEJournal of Homosexuality2023Cited by: 7References: 61

    LGBTQ+ labels and terminology in society embed ideological assumptions and affect who gains community support and protection. In academia, terminology is also needed to help define study objects, methods, and goals. Academics therefore need to choose their words to be both precise and appropriate, adjusting to changes in societal language. This article assesses the evolution of LGBTQ+ terminology in the titles and abstracts of academic journal ar…

  • The high scholarly value of grey literature before and during Covid-19

    Open AccessKayvan Kousha, Mike Thelwall et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2022

    New academic knowledge in journal articles is partly built on peer reviewed research already published in journals or books. Academics can also draw from non-academic sources, such as the websites of organisations that publish credible information. This article investigates trends in the academic citing of this type of grey literature for 17 health, media, statistics, and large international organisations, with a focus on Covid-19. The results sh…

  • A systematic method for identifying references to academic research in grey literature

    Open AccessMatthew S Bickley, Kayvan Kousha et al.ARTICLEScientometrics2022