A trio of award winners

Three prominent Indian chemists who work with our journals are among the winners of the 2015 Thomson Reuters Research Excellence – India Citations Awards. The awards are presented to influential researchers, based on research citations within Web of Science™.

Professor Rahul Banerjee (Associate Editor, CrystEngComm), Professor Arindam Banerjee (Soft MatterAdvisory Board member) and Dr Vandana Bhalla (Associate Editor, RSC Advances) all received awards. Dr Bhalla, Assistant Professor at the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amristar, is the first woman scientist in India to be recognised in this way.

"This award means a lot to me," Dr Bhalla said. "It is recognition of the hard work done by me and my team and the support of my family during the last 16 years.  It gives more energy and motivation to do better in the future."

Rahul Banerjee is the Principal Scientist at the Physical and Materials Chemistry Division, CSIR – National Chemical Laboratory.

"Any kind of recognition is important and it makes a researcher very happy," he said.

"This award indicates that the research we are doing at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory is getting wide appreciation around the world and people are following and citing our research publications. This award is also recognition of the hard work of my former and present PhD students and post docs."

Arindam Banerjee, Professor of Biological Chemistry at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkatta, has published more than 110 research papers in various international journals.

Ten awards were made in total, identifying 10 high-impact Indian scientists whose recent papers (2010-2014) represented the strongest research performances in their research area through the number of highly cited papers they have and the total citations from these papers.