Mário Figueiredo appears on the Most Cited Researchers (MCR) list, developed by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The MCR is organized in broad subject fields and specific subjects, with the IT researcher appearing among the most cited researchers in the world in the fields of “Computer Sci & Eng”, “Electrical & Electronic Eng” and “Mechanical Eng”.

This yearly ranking is built using the Scopus database, and contains those researchers that have global academic influence, as judged by their citations. As Mário Figueiredo explained to us, “The number of researchers of each university appearing in this list is used by ARWU as a one of the measures of academic impact, based on which the university rankings are obtained. Consequently, appearing in this list is very important for the visibility and prestige of the University of Lisbon, in addition to being a motive of pride for the people in the list”.

Besides Mário Figueiredo, there are only four other Portuguese researchers cited in the ARWU: Carlos Guedes Soares and Jorge de Brito (both from the University of Lisbon), Vladislav Kharton (University of Aveiro) and Alírio Rodrigues (University of Porto).

ARWU was first published in 2003 with the aim of finding the global standing of top Chinese universities. Since then, due to its scientifically sound methodology and currently with more than 1200 universities ranked, ARWU is now regarded as one of the most influential and widely observed rankings of the world´s research activities.