Previous work by Dr Ioannidis, on six highly cited observational studies, showed that conclusions from five of them were later refuted.

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His summary shows the U.K. boasts not only a larger share of research publications, but also a larger percentage of highly cited publications than would be expected from either its financial input or its researcher capacity.

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Tracking researchers whose recent published papers recorded notably higher levels of citations during 2011, along with the most highly cited individual papers of the year, the annual report spotlights emerging trends in science and the innovators behind them.

FORBES: Connect

Some of the studies have been highly cited and widely publicized: one, by cognitive scientists Daphne Bavelier and Shawn Green of the University of Rochester in New York, published in Nature in 2003 2, has been cited more than 650 times, and was widely reported by the media as showing that video games boost visual skills.

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Against the odds, with 1% of the world's population, 14% of the world's most highly-cited papers come from UK-based research.

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