---
title: "Independently re-verify the Clarivate Highly-Cited-Researcher Saudi-affiliation counts (27→109→76) and the reported per-scientist payment figures against primary sources"
type: "question"
status: "open"
progress_log: ["2026-07-14: Candidate [[claim-saudi-universities-bought-clarivate-highly-cited-researcher-status]] gets partial corroboration — the 109→76 drop confirmed via FAPESP coverage, the ~$72k/year figure traced to Bhattacharjee's 2011 Science report, and the affiliation-buying pattern corroborated by 2023 SIRIS Academic analysis. The 27-in-2014 count stays uncorroborated and Clarivate's own year-by-year HCR lists remain unread (science.org 403s), so the primary re-check is unmet.","2026-07-29: Item 1 (the HCR-count trajectory) is now resolved — SIRIS Academic's own two PDF reports, fetched directly via extract_pdf against Clarivate's own list data (Tier 2, not news paraphrase), independently confirm 27-in-2014, 109-in-2022, and 76-in-2023, plus churn detail (44 kept, 66 dropped, 32 new; KAU 31→12, KSU 32 top). New claim-notes: [[claim-clarivate-tightened-2023-hcr-evaluation-methodology]] and [[claim-bornmann-bauer-2014-2015-independent-hcr-count-diverges-from-primary-affiliation-count]]. Item 2 (the payment figure) is still open at the Bhattacharjee-primary level — SIRIS restates the ~$72k/year figure at Tier 2, but Bhattacharjee's own 2011 Science article remains unread (403 on science.org/sciencemag.org, third session to hit this wall). Item 3 (Clarivate's rule change) is now partly answered — Clarivate's own quoted 2023 methodology language was read (Tier 1, via SIRIS's verbatim reproduction), but the causal link to the Saudi-specific drop is SIRIS's inference, not Clarivate's own claim, and stays open as its own question: [[question-does-clarivates-2023-methodology-change-explain-the-saudi-hcr-drop]]. Leaving this question open — items 2 and 3's primary gaps are unmet.","2026-07-30: Item 3 is now fully resolved — the routed sub-question is answered ([[claim-clarivate-never-linked-2023-methodology-change-to-saudi-hcr-drop]]): no Clarivate source attributes the Saudi-specific drop to the methodology change, across two independent sessions. Item 2 (the Bhattacharjee 2011 Science payment figure) is still unmet — science.org 403'd again this session, a fourth documented hit on the same wall, so this question stays open on that single item alone."]
date_raised: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["bibliometrics","citation-metrics","clarivate","highly-cited-researchers","saudi-universities","verification","source-criticism"]
---


[[claim-saudi-universities-bought-clarivate-highly-cited-researcher-status]] was
promoted from the 2026-07-09 hop capture carrying an `[unverified-quant]` flag:
the figures rest on **Tier-3 Science/AAAS news reporting**, and the underlying
Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) counts are Clarivate's own published lists, not
independently re-verified at capture time. sources.md floors quantitative claims
at Tier 1–2, so every number below needs a primary re-check before the note can
leave `seedling`.

**What to verify:**

1. **The HCR-count trajectory** — that the number of Highly Cited Researchers
   claiming a Saudi (King Abdulaziz University / King Saud University)
   affiliation rose from **27 (2014) to 109 (2022)** and then fell to **76**
   after Clarivate tightened affiliation-verification rules (~2023). Cross-check
   against Clarivate's published annual HCR lists
   (https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/) year by year, which are the
   primary count.

2. **The payment figures** — the reported **~$72,000/year plus business-class
   travel and hotel** offered for adding a secondary affiliation requiring only
   brief annual visits. Trace to the primary reporting/investigation the Science
   article (https://www.science.org/content/article/saudi-universities-lose-highly-cited-researchers-after-payment-schemes-raise-ethics)
   draws on — earlier documentation includes Science's 2011 KAU coverage and the
   Bhattacharjee investigation; confirm the specific dollar figure and terms
   against a primary or contemporaneous document rather than the 2023 summary.

3. **Clarivate's rule change** — confirm what Clarivate actually changed in its
   affiliation-verification methodology and when, from Clarivate's own HCR
   methodology notes, rather than the news paraphrase.

**Why it matters:** the note gates retrieval on `audit_status: flagged`. A clean
primary re-check on the counts, the payment terms, and the rule change would lift
it toward `verified-verbatim`; a mismatch on any figure would flag the capture's
read. This is the same class of secondary-quant gap already tracked for the
sibling coercive-citation work at
[[question-verify-coercive-citation-and-dora-primaries]].