Sage’s 10-Year Impact Awards Captures Longer-Term Significance
Sage’s 10-Year Impact Awards recognize academic papers appearing in Sage-published journals that have achieved lasting impact. The winning papers are the most cited over a 10-year period, highlighting research whose significance has endured and, often, grown over time, including work whose influence may have been overlooked in the short term. Sage, the parent of Social Science Space, started the awards program in 2020.
Why 10 years?
Standard two- and five-year citation windows do not capture the full impact of papers whose influence develops more gradually or is recognized later. This is especially common in the social and behavioral sciences, where methodological diversity, an emphasis on new approaches rather than solely iterative ones, and stark disciplinary differences mean impact often unfolds over longer horizons. By looking beyond short citation windows, the 10-Year Impact Awards counter short-termism and celebrate research that continues to shape scholarship, inform decision-making, and benefit society long after publication.
The awards are just one part of Sage’s broader commitment to better measure impact in the social and behavioral sciences. For a fuller understanding of the broader issues, read an excerpt from Ziyad Marar’s On Measuring Social Science Impact, alongside a collection of scholarly responses to his piece. Sage also offers its Sage Policy Profiles tool, which allows individual researchers to both discover where their work has been cited in policy documents and identify opportunities where they might contribute scholarship to policy ecosystems.
Below is a list of the winners to date. In many cases, you can also hear directly from previous winners reflecting on how their work has been used in the years since publication.
2026
“Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review” by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, Tyler Harris, and David Stephenson in Perspectives on Psychological Science
- 5131 scholarly citations
- 365 policy citations
“The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration” by Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig in The Anthropocene Review
- 3074 scholarly citations
- 263 policy citations
“Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization” by Shoshana Zuboff in the Journal of Information Technology
- 2327 scholarly citations
- 123 policy citations
2025
“Bibliometric Methods in Management and Organization” by Ivan Zupic and Tomaž Čater in Organizational Research Methods
“Qualitative Content Analysis: A Focus on Trustworthiness” by Satu Elo, Maria Kääriäinen, Outi Kanste, Tarja Pölkki, Kati Utriainen, and Helvi Kyngäs in Sage Open
“Popular Paper Examines Ensuring Trustworthiness in Qualitative Analysis” | “Trust, but verify,” is a Russian proverb that gained prominence during the Cold War during negotiations centered on nuclear arsenals. That idea informs an influential paper by health researchers Satu Elo and Helvi Kyngäs who sought to measure the trustworthiness of qualitative data gathered in the realm of nursing science.
2024
“Vision meets robotics: The KITTI dataset” by Andreas Geiger, Philip Lenz, Christoph Stiller, and Raquel Urtasun in The International Journal of Robotics Research
“A Milestone Dataset on the Road to Self-Driving Cars Proves Highly Popular“ | he idea of an autonomous vehicle – i.e., a self-driving car – isn’t particularly new. Leonardo da Vinci had some ideas he wrote down in 1478, and actual prototypes appeared in controlled settings even before World War II. But only in the last couple of years has the prospect of widespread consumer use been within reach. So a decade ago, when four researchers created a dataset built around key aspects of autonomous vehicles, it turned out they were neither ahead of their time nor behind it, but of it.
“Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate” by Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and Keith E. Stanovich in Perspectives on Psychological Science
“Paper to Advance Debate on Dual-Process Theories Genuinely Advanced Debate“ | sychologists Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and Keith E. Stanovich have a history of publishing important research papers that resonate for years. Evans, for example, saw a 1975 paper on dual-process theories of cognition he co-authored with Peter Watson set the stage for discussing this insight. Meanwhile, Stanovich has been named one of the 50 most-cited developmental psychologists and was the world’s most-cited expert on reading disability for 10 years ending in 1992. Given their track records, it should be little surprise that a paper they jointly wrote, and on dual-process theories, should have proved particularly durable. Their article, “Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate” and which appeared in Perspectives on Psychological Science was the second-most cited paper published in a Sage journal in 2013.
“The New Statistics: Why and How” by Geoff Cumming in Psychological Science
“Paper Opening Science to the New Statistics Proves Its Import a Decade Later“ | The presumed misuse or even abuse of statistics is widely suspected among the innumerate, but awareness even by skilled practitioners that some common aspects of everyday use are, well, “weird” is less remarked upon publicly but no less real. That was certainly the state of affairs a decade ago when the editor of the journal Psychological Science approached an expert in the area of statistical cognition — the study of how people understand or misunderstand statistical concepts — to pen an article on making use of new and less weird statistical methods that accompanied the rise of Open Science.
2023
“The Nature and Organization of Individual Differences in Executive Functions: Four General Conclusions” by Akira Miyake and Naomi P. Friedman in Current Directions in Psychological Science
“Paper on Understanding Individual Differences In Executive Functions Proves Hugely Popular“ | “Executive function,” whether expressed in that term or more colloquial language, is a psychological subject of huge interest both inside the discipline and — again using more colloquial terms – in the world at large. The authors of the 2012 paper “The Nature and Organization of Individual Differences in Executive Functions: Four General Conclusions” were well aware of this interest – dating back at least to their earlier work in a paper from 2000 – and crafted this paper covering the latest framework to appeal to as wide an academic audience as possible. Their intentions paid dividends.
“What We Know and Don’t Know About Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review and Research Agenda” by Herman Aguinis and Ante Glavas in the Journal of Management
“Honoring a Prescient Look Corporate Social Responsibility“ | In its abstract, the paper “What We Know and Don’t Know About Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review and Research Agenda,” announced that it “offer[s] a detailed research agenda for the future, based on a multilevel perspective that aims to integrate diverse theoretical frameworks as well as develop an understanding of underlying mechanisms and microfoundations of CSR.” That eye toward “the future” seems particularly prescient, as the paper, written by Herman Aguinis and Ante Glavas and published in the Journal of Management, is one of three recipients of Sage’s fourth-annual 10-Year Impact Awards.
“What Makes Online Content Viral?” by Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman in the Journal of Marketing Research
“A Viral Paper on Determining What Makes Online Content Viral“ | Although it is clear that social transmission is both frequent and important, less is known about why certain pieces of online content are more viral than others. … Is virality just random, as some argue, or might certain characteristics predict whether content will be highly shared?” This question, and its correlates, animated the 2012 paper “What Makes Online Content Viral.” The authors, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman, considered their own findings in crafting the article … and seems to have paid dividends.
“Katy Milkman on Change” | Paper co-author Katherine Milkman was also a guest on our Social Science Bites podcast. She details some of the biases and some of the critical thinking processes that both define and then overcome the obstacles to changing our behavior. These range from concepts with such academic names as present bias and temptation bundling to the more colloquial ‘what the hell effect’ and its antidote, the emergency reserve. But the point of her research – especially as it gets translated to the public through her podcast Choiceology or her 2021 book How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be – is to find practical ways to change yourself.
2022
“Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?” by Michael Buhrmester, Tracy Kwang, and Samuel D. Gosling, published in Perspectives on Psychological Science. This paper has more than 7,500 citations.
“Paper on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Proves a Durable Article“ | Being the first, or at least among the first, is generally an advantageous position in most endeavors. A 2011 paper on Amazon’s new and innovative Mechanical Turk, which among other things crowdsources prospective participants for social and behavioral research via an online marketplace, garnered 7,500 citations in the subsequent decade.
“False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant” by Joseph P. Simmons, Leif D. Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn, published in Psychological Science. It has more than 4,100 citations.
“Paper on Showing Significance Proves Very Significant Decade Later“ | You might expect an academic paper that asserts you can present nearly any research finding as significant would be widely read and cited. And in the case of “False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant,” a 2011 paper by Joseph P. Simmons, Leif D. Nelson, and Uri Simonsohn appearing in Psychological Science, you’d absolutely be right.
“The Danish National Patient Register” by Elsebeth Lynge, Jakob Lynge Sandegaard, and Matejka Rebolj published in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. It has more than 2,800 citations.
“Paper on Danish National Patient Register Keeps on Giving After 10 Years“ | Public records are the basis for a large swath of medical and social science research. So it’s not surprising that guides to these records would prove popular in the academic community. But just how popular? In the case of “The Danish National Patient Register,” published in 2011 in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, the answer is “very popular.”
2021
“The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Method” by Yla R. Tausczik and James W. Pennebaker in Journal of Language and Social Psychology
“Factors Affecting Wound Healing” by S. Guo and L.A. DiPietro in Journal of Dental Research
“Customer Engagement Behavior: Theoretical Foundations and Research Directions” by Jenny van Doorn, Katherine N. Lemon, Vikas Mittal, Stephen Nass, Doreén Pick, Peter Pirner, and Peter C. Verhoef in Journal of Service Research
“Understanding the Foundations of Customer Engagement” | We asked two of the customer engagement paper’s seven authors, Jenny van Doorn and Vikas Mittal, to answer some questions about their clearly influential — and intentionally foundational — paper. Jenny van Doorn and Vikas Mittal wrote that “In our paper, we provided a conceptual foundation for the construct of customer engagement, which we defined as behavioral manifestations toward a brand or firm beyond purchase, such as writing reviews or blogging, or changing the way products and services are consumed.”
2020
“Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures” by Laura M. Desimone in Educational Researcher, a publication of the American Educational Research Association
“Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Performance: An Assessment of Past Research and Suggestions for the Future” by Andreas Rauch, Johan Wiklund, G.T. Lumpkin, and Michael Frese in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
“How One Study on Entrepreneurial Orientation Would Impact the Field“ | Over a decade ago, researchers Andreas Rauch, Johan Wiklund, G.T. Lumpkin, and Michael Frese began looking at the connection between business performance and ‘entrepreneurial orientation’—the entrepreneurial governing style of a business. Published in 2009 in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, their research, “Entrepreneurial Orientation and Business Performance: An Assessment of Past Research and Suggestions for the Future,” received more than 1,000 citations in the 10 years before it was awarded.
“Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition” by Arne L. Kalleberg in American Sociological Review, a publication of the American Sociological Association
“The Future of Precarious Work” | How do uncertain work conditions create insecure workers? The extreme loss of jobs in the U.S. as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with a flailing economy has led those who are still employed to question the stability of their jobs moving forward. In 2009, American Sociological Review published Arne L. Kalleberg‘s “Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition,” in which he explores the various ways unpredictable work impacts employees. Over 10 years later, sociologists actively turn to and build upon his work and the suggested structural changes needed to create more stable conditions.
