The 2021 Clarivate Citation Laureates has been announced, welcoming 16 new researchers of different nationalities this year, including Giorgio Parisi, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Sapienza University in Rome and former President of the Accademia dei Lincei. The physicist, the first scholar from the Italian academy to receive such an award, was honoured for "ground-breaking discoveries in quantum-chromodynamics and the study of complex disordered systems".

The Institute for Scientific Information's analysis, carried out in the Medicine or Physiology, Physics, Chemistry and Economics research areas, draws up the list of researchers who have most influenced the international scientific community based on the impact of scientific publications.

"I am extremely satisfied with the recognition of the Clarivate Citation Laurates, also because it is the first time it has been given to an Italian academic. Such an award is a collective prize that extends to a community; its merit also goes to the more than five hundred collaborators I have had, with whom we have had fun trying to unravel the mysteries of nature," says Giorgio Parisi. "I am delighted and honoured to have received this prestigious award, not only for being included in a very prestigious company but also for having taken it in the same year as my friend Jean-Pierre Chaungeux, the famous neurologist and foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei".

The list of Citation Laureates is based on articles with more than 2,000 citations: there are about 6,500 of the 52 million articles indexed since 1970, and they account for just over 0.01% of the total. This criterion narrows down the field of scholars considered for the Citation Laureates, who currently number about 380, including 59 Nobel prizes.

Giorgio Parisi is a full professor of Theoretical Physics at Sapienza University of Rome, a research associate at INFN, the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics and former president of the Accademia dei lincei (2018-2021). Born in Rome in 1948, Parisi completed his studies at Sapienza University of Rome where he graduated in physics in 1970 under Nicola Cabibbo's guidance. He began his scientific career at INFN's Frascati National Laboratories, first as a member of CNR-National Research Council of Italy( 1971-1973) and then as a researcher at INFN (1973-1981). During this period, he spent long periods abroad, first at Columbia University in New York (1973-1974), then at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvettes (1976-1977), and at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris (1977-1978). In his scientific career, Giorgio Parisi has made many decisive and widely recognised contributions in different physics areas: particle physics, statistical mechanics, fluid dynamics, condensed matter, supercomputers. He has also written articles on neural networks, the immune system and group movement in animals. He has been the winner of two advanced grants from the Erc European Research Council, in 2010 and 2016, and is the author of over six hundred articles and contributions to scientific conferences and four books. His works are well known.

The Italian physicist has received numerous awards. In 1992 he was awarded the Boltzmann Medal (awarded every three years by the IUPAP International Union of Pure and Applied Physics for new achievements in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics) for his contributions to the theory of disordered systems, and the Max Planck Medal in 2011, by the German physics society Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. He received the Feltrinelli Prize for Physics in 1987, Italgas in 1993, the Dirac Medal for Theoretical Physics in 1999, the Italian Prime Minister's Award in 2002, Enrico Fermi in 2003, Dannie Heineman in 2005, Nonino in 2005, Galileo in 2006, Microsoft in 2007, Lagrange in 2009, Vittorio De Sica in 2011, Prix des Trois Physiciens in 2012, the Nature Award Mentoring in Science in 2013, High Energy and Particle Physics from the Eps European Physical Society in 2015, Lars Onsager from the APS American Physical Society in 2016. In 2021 he received the prestigious Wolf Prize for Physics. He is a member of the Accademia dei Quaranta, the Académie des Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the European Academy and the American Philosophical Society.