Basic ESO Publication Statistics

Introduction

What is the ESO Telescope Bibliography?

The ESO Telescope Bibliography (telbib) is a database of refereed papers published by the ESO users' community. All papers use partly or exclusively data from ESO telescopes.

Coverage and Completeness

telbib contains records from publication year 1996 onwards. New records are added approx. 3 weeks after they appear with their final bibcode on the NASA ADS Abstract Service. The following journals are routinely screened: A&A, A&ARv, AJ, AN, ApJ, ApJS, ARA&A, EM&P, Icarus, MNRAS, Nature, NewA, NewAR, PASJ, PASP, P&SS, Science.

For VLT/VLTI and Chajnantor facilities, instrument-level information and program IDs are available since the beginning of operations. All papers based on data from La Silla facilities are tagged with telescope labels since 1996, but instrument labels and program IDs have only been assigned to papers from publishing year 2000 onwards. In addition, some instruments (e.g., FEROS@1.5 m telescope) may have been operated under special agreements for which no program IDs exist.

We make extensive efforts in order to identify all refereed papers that use ESO data (see also the telbib Help pages at http://telbib.eso.org/help.html) and consider telbib essentially complete.
Statistics for a given year will not be complete until approx. March of the following year.

Access, Reports, Statistics

telbib's public interface is available at http://telbib.eso.org. While the public interface provides access to some publications that use data obtained during non-ESO time (such as APEX observations obtained during Max Planck, Onsala, or Chilean observing time), statistics reported in this document include only papers based on data from telescopes and instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO, unless explicitly mentioned otherwise.

Metrics derived from the database can be explored in various ways:

search results are shown in tabular format. Whenever possible, entries include ESO program IDs that provide direct links to the data in ESO Archive. The results can be exported for further use
search results can be visualized as animated charts which are created on-the-fly, based on the user’s queries
interactive graphs of selected statistics are available in the telbib Statistics area (http://telbib.eso.org/telbibstats/)
an overview of publication statistics is available at http://telbib.eso.org/pubstats_overview.php. In order to make our statistics more transparent and reproducible, the numbers are linked to the corresponding records in the telbib database
various metrics as well as instrument-level statistics derived from the database can be found in this document, "Basic ESO Statistics", which is available on the ESO Libraries homepage or directly at http://www.eso.org/libraries/edocs/ESO/ESOstats.pdf
lists of papers included in the ESO telescope bibliography are available as Supplements to the ESO Annual Report (http://www.eso.org/public/products/annualreports/).

For more detailed reports, contact the ESO librarians (library@eso.org)

Paper classification / selection criteria

Papers pertaining to the ESO Telescope Bibliography use partly or exclusively data from ESO facilities. These can be observations taken by the authors or data obtained from the ESO Science Archive or other sources, regardless of whether or not the observations have been published before. However, papers that merely quote results from the literature, that are derived from ESO data, are excluded. Likewise, papers that describe instrumentation or software, simply mention ongoing projects (e.g., surveys or Large Programmes), suggest future observations with ESO facilities, develop models or run simulations, using data merely as examples, are not included in telbib. Also excluded are papers which show ESO images as a visual reference rather than using them to achieve scientific results.

The ESO librarians communicate with authors as well as ESO instrument scientists and archive specialists to determine if, and which, observations were used in publications. The final decision about inclusion or exclusion of a given paper lies with the ESO Director for Science.

Populating the Database

telbib is compiled by scanning the major astronomy journals for scientific papers that contain any of the ESO-defined keywords (e.g., telescope and instrument names). Bibliographic information, citations and some further metadata are imported from the NASA ADS Abstract Service. Standardized descriptions of telescopes and instruments, survey names and other tags as well as ESO program IDs are assigned by the librarians.

ESO total

Publications

ESO publication statistics are derived from the Telescope Bibliography (telbib), a database of refereed articles that directly use ESO data. telbib is maintained by the ESO library. Here, we provide some basic statistics to give an overview of publications and citations for the publication years 1996-2023.

Notes:

VLT/VLTI: papers using data generated by VLT and VLTI instruments, including visitor instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO, e.g., VLT Ultracam, VLTI PIONIER.

La Silla: papers using data generated by facilities located on La Silla, including visitor instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO, e.g., NTT Ultracam. Papers based on data from non-ESO telescopes or observations obtained during ‘private’ periods are not included. Survey telescopes: papers using data generated by ESO’s survey telescopes VISTA and VST

APEX: papers using data generated by APEX, including visitor instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO, e.g., APEX P-Artemis, APEX Z-Spec. Other visitor instruments (e.g., APEX/CONDOR) are excluded. Only papers based (entirely or partly) on ESO APEX time are included.

ALMA: papers using data generated by ALMA. Only papers based (entirely or partly) on European ALMA time are included.

Archive: papers using partly or exclusively archival data, i.e., observations without any overlap between observers and authors.

Papers can use data from more than one facility, therefore the total number cannot be calculated by simply adding all publications of the individual sites, telescopes, or instruments.

Publication and citation statistics mentioned in this report date from April 2024, unless indicated otherwise. Statistics for a given year will not be complete until approx. March of the following year.

Table 1: Number of refereed papers using ESO data (see also http://telbib.eso.org/pubstats_overview.php)
	VLT/VLTI	La Silla	Survey tel.	APEX	ALMA	Archive	Total
1996	-	350	-	-	-	-	350
1997	-	389	-	-	-	-	389
1998	-	404	-	-	-	-	405
1999	29	324	-	-	-	-	348
2000	51	299	-	-	-	3	341
2001	105	316	-	-	-	6	399
2002	160	289	-	-	-	19	409
2003	260	305	-	-	-	20	512
2004	342	316	-	-	-	54	588
2005	359	297	-	-	-	55	607
2006	413	280	-	12	-	98	641
2007	495	312	-	1	-	115	718
2008	486	289	-	8	-	107	689
2009	473	260	-	15	-	115	660
2010	510	277	2	29	-	134	738
2011	556	286	13	27	-	143	787
2012	615	270	30	42	16	223	866
2013	568	273	38	44	40	225	843
2014	563	267	73	47	47	211	871
2015	555	211	94	34	74	238	864
2016	567	199	109	49	131	268	946
2017	634	232	152	46	152	329	1,092
2018	619	239	145	44	188	346	1,096
2019	600	209	150	32	217	383	1,080
2020	610	210	155	39	210	388	1,079
2021	639	200	189	35	218	435	1,145
2022	583	175	148	40	224	422	1,043
2023	623	185	123	24	261	481	1,075
Total	11,415	7,663	1,421	568	1,778	4,818	20,581

Citations

In bibliometric studies, numbers of publications show the observatory’s productivity, citations the impact papers have made among the community. Since it takes time to gather citations, older papers typically have higher citation numbers than recent ones.
While it is tempting to use publication and citation statistics for comparisons, this has to be done with utmost care as the numbers may have been obtained with different methodologies.

Table 2: Total and average citations of refereed papers using ESO data
	Pubs	Cites	Average
1996	350	18,963	54
1997	389	19,799	51
1998	405	40,097	99
1999	348	33,038	95
2000	341	19,994	59
2001	399	23,146	58
2002	409	26,625	65
2003	512	40,308	79
2004	588	48,612	83
2005	607	39,278	65
2006	641	50,405	79
2007	718	49,982	70
2008	689	45,436	66
2009	660	51,340	78
2010	738	52,200	71
2011	787	49,428	63
2012	866	50,363	58
2013	843	56,142	67
2014	871	50,373	58
2015	864	48,654	56
2016	946	51,941	55
2017	1,092	55,877	51
2018	1,096	53,558	49
2019	1,080	38,764	36
2020	1,079	30,209	28
2021	1,145	24,376	21
2022	1,043	14,562	14
2023	1,075	10,332	10

ESO and Other observatories

In order to put ESO’s research output into context, we give an overview of the total numbers of publications of major observatories for the publication years 1996 to 2023 (if already available). Note that some facilities date back further than that; their early years are not included in this graph.
The most simplistic way of comparing facilities is to look at the numbers of publications. Obviously, this favors large institutions with many facilities over smaller ones. A more meaningful investigation should normalize the numbers in some way, for instance by number of observing hours, by actual share of data used in the papers (as many scientific articles use data from more than one observatory), or by budget (telescope construction costs and maintenance).
When comparing publication statistics among different observatories, it is essential to assess the selection criteria applied by each observatory. To the best of our knowledge, the observatories shown in this graph include only papers that actually use observational data from their facilities (as opposed to merely referencing them). All papers were published in refereed journals.

The statistics shown in Fig. 3 and Table 3 were obtained as follows:

ESO total, VLT/VLTI, La Silla, ESO survey telescope, APEX (ESO and all partners), ALMA (Europe and all partners): ESO Telescope Bibliography (http://telbib.eso.org)

Chandra: Chandra Bibliographic Statistics (http://cxc.harvard.edu/cda/bibstats/bibstats.html ‘Refereed Chandra Science Papers’ and http://cxc.harvard.edu/cda/bibstats/plots/Current/Papers_by-year.txt)

Gemini: Gemini publications, (http://www.gemini.edu/science/publications/), statistics via NASA/ADS, bibgroup: Gemini

HST: HST Publication Statistics (http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/bibliography/pubstat.html)

JWST: JWST Publication Statistics (https://archive.stsci.edu/jwst/bibliography/pubstat.html)

Keck: Keck Refereed Publications List (https://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/inst/scistratplan/kpub-keck-publications.html#top)

Spitzer: Spitzer Bibliographical Database (until 2020 at http://sohelp2.ipac.caltech.edu/bibsearch/, Observational + Legacy Enhanced Data Products), discontinued

Subaru: Subaru Publishing Results (https://subarutelescope.org/Observing/Proposals/Publish/index.html)

XMM: XMM-Newton in the Journals (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xmm/xmmbib.html). Number of publications per year provided by Norbert Schartel, ESA, Madrid, Spain

Table 3: Number of refereed papers using data from ESO and other observatories. Please note that statistics for a given year may remain incomplete throughout the following year. Links to the observatory statistics can be found via the links listed below Fig. 3
	ESO total	VLT/ VLTI	La Silla	Survey tel.	APEX (ESO)	ALMA (ESO)	APEX (all)	ALMA (all)	Chandra	Gemini	HST	JWST	Keck	Spitzer	Subaru	XMM
1996	350	-	350	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	307	-	53	-	-	-
1997	389	-	389	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	378	-	68	-	-	-
1998	405	-	404	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	509	-	109	-	-	-
1999	348	29	324	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	502	-	128	-	-	-
2000	341	51	299	-	-	-	-	-	55	2	537	-	169	-	17	1
2001	399	105	316	-	-	-	-	-	198	2	560	-	175	-	23	85
2002	409	160	289	-	-	-	-	-	330	25	602	-	193	-	52	107
2003	512	260	305	-	-	-	-	-	431	27	607	-	210	-	52	242
2004	588	342	316	-	-	-	-	-	400	54	611	-	214	90	73	357
2005	607	359	297	-	-	-	-	-	447	78	686	-	232	138	68	350
2006	641	413	280	-	12	-	22	-	549	101	715	-	277	322	92	441
2007	718	495	312	-	1	-	5	-	499	122	728	-	312	503	103	389
2008	689	486	289	-	8	-	19	-	517	135	704	-	262	527	106	438
2009	660	473	260	-	15	-	29	-	430	151	679	-	269	681	122	472
2010	738	510	277	2	29	-	49	-	421	130	734	-	289	698	139	418
2011	787	556	286	13	27	-	50	-	440	189	789	-	304	659	141	450
2012	866	615	270	30	42	16	66	19	452	170	848	-	340	717	166	414
2013	843	568	273	38	44	40	74	65	425	205	785	-	319	694	119	438
2014	871	563	267	73	47	47	74	97	404	231	819	-	301	661	131	399
2015	864	555	211	94	34	74	63	148	429	204	853	-	306	668	148	370
2016	946	567	199	109	49	131	79	234	436	200	883	-	305	587	122	453
2017	1092	634	232	152	46	152	72	339	471	230	914	-	305	617	141	394
2018	1096	619	239	145	44	188	78	381	454	200	968	-	318	558	158	460
2019	1080	600	209	150	32	217	64	454	421	261	1016	-	312	530	148	452
2020	1079	610	210	155	39	210	69	442	389	251	930	-	293	465	178	388
2021	1145	639	200	189	35	218	61	486	377	244	1031	-	320	-	171	422
2022	1043	583	175	148	40	224	63	452	366	261	964	51	315	-	194	464
2023	1075	623	185	123	24	261	42	497	384	253	1057	397	301	-	150	-
Total	20,581	11,415	7,663	1,421	568	1,778	979	3,614	9,725	3,726	20,716	448	6,999	9,115	2,814	8,404

VLT instruments

VLT papers use data generated by VLT instruments. Visitor instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO, e.g., VLT Ultracam, are included in the general VLT statistics, but are not shown in Fig. 4. Instrument-level data for the VLT are available since the beginning of operations, i.e., from publication year 1999 onwards

FLAMES papers are listed as GIRAFFE and/or UVES. NACO = NAOS + CONICA. SINFONI = SPIFFI + MACAO

Table 5: Number of refereed papers using VLT data
	CRIRES	ESPRESSO	FORS1	FORS2	GIRAFFE	HAWK-I	ISAAC	KMOS	MUSE	NACO	SINFONI	SPHERE	UVES	VIMOS	VISIR	X-SHOOTER
1999	-	-	13	-	-	-	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2000	-	-	24	2	-	-	11	-	-	-	-	-	16	-	-	-
2001	-	-	50	10	-	-	23	-	-	-	-	-	33	-	-	-
2002	-	-	60	30	-	-	38	-	-	1	-	-	51	-	-	-
2003	-	-	91	43	1	-	75	-	-	10	1	-	71	-	-	-
2004	-	-	103	89	3	-	86	-	-	23	2	-	98	2	-	-
2005	-	-	76	82	9	-	84	-	-	31	1	-	104	20	3	-
2006	-	-	89	78	19	-	88	-	-	39	13	-	117	20	6	-
2007	3	-	88	82	30	-	83	-	-	50	27	-	133	57	14	-
2008	7	-	77	98	33	2	68	-	-	51	24	-	130	46	22	-
2009	10	-	75	104	36	6	72	-	-	41	29	-	110	67	20	-
2010	19	-	49	91	39	17	75	-	-	56	36	-	134	60	19	13
2011	21	-	55	113	52	24	51	-	-	50	41	-	124	57	21	37
2012	25	-	47	136	50	27	64	-	-	55	41	-	136	93	23	50
2013	27	-	40	101	49	38	46	1	-	58	33	-	119	76	17	70
2014	23	-	27	106	59	29	42	3	2	49	42	-	137	79	13	68
2015	20	-	15	91	57	24	33	9	17	46	36	16	146	63	4	78
2016	13	-	21	109	33	34	34	10	47	38	39	29	124	75	8	67
2017	16	-	16	107	39	37	17	19	77	30	37	34	134	89	23	103
2018	8	-	18	82	43	24	19	13	98	33	36	47	140	68	8	103
2019	18	1	10	60	34	17	13	12	120	40	37	41	140	37	18	103
2020	5	20	5	61	27	17	11	17	133	26	33	60	120	59	16	109
2021	3	21	12	53	42	27	10	19	164	25	25	44	135	55	14	96
2022	6	34	9	44	42	19	5	14	170	29	12	46	115	53	9	83
2023	11	40	8	52	50	15	8	13	200	22	24	43	123	35	7	119
Total	235	116	1,078	1,824	747	357	1,061	130	1,028	803	569	360	2,690	1,111	265	1,099

Table 6: Number of refereed publications using data from VLTI instruments
	AMBER	GRAVITY	MATISSE	MIDI	PIONIER	VINCI
2002	-	-	-	-	-	1
2003	-	-	-	-	-	6
2004	-	-	-	3	-	12
2005	-	-	-	5	-	12
2006	1	-	-	11	-	6
2007	9	-	-	19	-	4
2008	12	-	-	11	-	1
2009	12	-	-	18	1	4
2010	12	-	-	6	-	1
2011	16	-	-	13	4	1
2012	18	-	-	8	2	1
2013	20	-	-	20	3	-
2014	15	-	-	12	13	1
2015	11	-	-	10	4	-
2016	13	-	-	7	11	-
2017	10	7	-	5	15	1
2018	7	9	-	6	10	-
2019	7	8	-	6	12	-
2020	7	21	1	3	9	-
2021	4	24	6	3	10	-
2022	3	16	6	3	9	-
2023	-	14	4	1	3	1
Total	177	99	17	170	106	52

Table 7: Number of refereed publications using data from the VISTA and VST telescopes
	VISTA (VIRCAM)	VST (OmegaCAM)
2010	2	-
2011	13	-
2012	30	-
2013	38	-
2014	65	8
2015	72	24
2016	94	19
2017	102	55
2018	107	49
2019	101	58
2020	116	61
2021	146	71
2022	114	58
2023	75	70
Total	1,075	473

La Silla instruments

This section reports on papers that use data generated by other facilities of the La Silla Paranal (LSP) Observatory, located on La Silla. Papers based on data from non-ESO telescopes or observations obtained during reserved periods (e.g., national allocations of time) are not included. Instrument-level data for La Silla facilities are shown below from publication year 2000 onwards. Only papers based on data from FEROS (1.5m and 2.2m tel. combined), WFI (2.2m) EFOSC2 (2.2m, 3.6m, NTT combined), HARPS (3.6m), EMMI, and SOFI (both NTT) are included in the graph. The table also shows papers based on data from smaller or decommissioned La Silla facilities (e.g., TIMMI2, SUSI2) if observations took place during ESO time. Visitor instruments for which observing time is recommended by ESO (e.g., NTT Ultracam) are included in the general statistics, but are not shown in Fig. 7

Table 8: Number of refereed papers using data from La Silla facilities
	2.2m		3.6m	NTT			La Silla decomm.
	FEROS	WFI	HARPS	EFOSC2	EMMI	SOFI
2000	6	3	-	24	52	20	237
2001	28	16	-	45	34	31	217
2002	19	18	-	28	39	48	178
2003	34	15	-	44	42	51	169
2004	23	38	2	24	52	63	175
2005	42	30	10	28	49	49	135
2006	36	47	12	23	57	55	91
2007	40	52	21	27	68	48	97
2008	48	41	26	30	45	65	80
2009	38	33	35	30	43	54	67
2010	48	35	49	40	40	44	55
2011	48	33	63	47	38	45	47
2012	54	36	59	40	31	44	34
2013	47	32	73	63	31	43	37
2014	49	37	71	47	17	49	35
2015	40	26	81	46	13	38	17
2016	35	15	83	44	6	31	20
2017	40	9	98	56	11	28	20
2018	40	11	121	48	7	30	8
2019	34	9	101	44	3	24	19
2020	30	2	123	36	3	17	15
2021	50	5	98	46	1	14	15
2022	39	6	96	34	3	14	6
2023	32	3	98	47	3	16	5
Total	900	552	1,320	941	688	921	1,779

EFOSC2 = EFOSC2@NTT, EFOSC2@3.6m + EFOSC2@2.2m
FEROS = FEROS@1.5m + FEROS@2.2m
La Silla decomm. = small or decommissioned facilities.
National telescopes (e.g., Swiss Euler Tel.) are not included unless they are used in combination with data from ESO facilities.

APEX

APEX is a collaboration between the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR, 55%), the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO, 13%), and ESO (32%). The telescope is located on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama region and is operated by ESO.

Publication information for APEX is available since the beginning of operations, i.e., from publication year 2006 onwards. Papers based on data from all APEX partners are recorded in the ESO Telescope Bibliography (telbib), but only those that use ESO/APEX data are counted in the ESO statistics.

Table 9: Number of refereed publications using ESO/APEX data and data generated by all APEX partners, respectively.
	APEX
	ESO/APEX	all APEX
2006	12	22
2007	1	5
2008	8	19
2009	15	29
2010	29	49
2011	27	50
2012	42	66
2013	44	74
2014	47	74
2015	34	63
2016	49	79
2017	46	72
2018	44	78
2019	32	64
2020	39	69
2021	35	61
2022	40	63
2023	24	42
Total	568	979

Imagers: APEX-SZ, Artemis, LABOCA, P-Artemis, SABOCA, SUPERCAM
Spectrographs: APEX-2A, CHAMP+, CONDOR, FLASH, LAsMA, MPI_1.1THz, nFLASH, PI230, SEPIA, SHFI, ZEUS-2, Z-Spec

ALMA

ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, is an international collaboration between Europe, East Asia, and North America in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The European executive is represented by ESO, which also hosts the European ALMA Regional Centre. The other partners North America and East Asia are represented by NRAO and NAOJ, re- spectively. The ALMA telescope bibliography is maintained by the librarians at ESO and NRAO as well as by NAOJ.

Papers based on European observing time as well as on data from all ALMA partners are recorded in the ESO Telescope Bib- liography (telbib), but only those that use ESO/ALMA data are counted in the ESO statistics. Both numbers are shown below for comparison.

Papers resulting from science verification data are attributed to the four ALMA partners JAO, ESO, North America, and East Asia.

Table 10: Number of refereed publications using ESO/ALMA data and data generated by all ALMA partners per year, respectively.
ALMA
	ESO/ALMA	all ALMA
2012	16	19
2013	40	65
2014	47	97
2015	74	148
2016	131	234
2017	152	339
2018	188	381
2019	217	454
2020	210	442
2021	218	486
2022	224	452
2023	261	497
Total	1,778	3,614

Table 11: Number of refereed publications using archival data per year (absolute numbers and percentages).
	PI data only	Archive data only	Archive + PI data	All archival	Total	PI data only %	Archive data only %	Archive + PI data %	All archival %	Total %
1999	348	-	-	-	348	100	-	-	-	100
2000	338	2	1	3	341	99.1	0.6	0.3	0.9	100
2001	393	4	2	6	399	98.5	1	0.5	1.5	100
2002	390	11	8	19	409	95.4	2.7	2	4.6	100
2003	492	12	8	20	512	96.1	2.3	1.6	3.9	100
2004	534	34	20	54	588	90.8	5.8	3.4	9.2	100
2005	552	29	26	55	607	90.9	4.8	4.3	9.1	100
2006	543	66	32	98	641	84.7	10.3	5	15.3	100
2007	603	67	48	115	718	84	9.3	6.7	16	100
2008	582	55	52	107	689	84.5	8	7.5	15.5	100
2009	545	59	56	115	660	82.6	8.9	8.5	17.4	100
2010	604	75	59	134	738	81.8	10.2	8	18.2	100
2011	644	74	69	143	787	81.8	9.4	8.8	18.2	100
2012	643	145	78	223	866	74.2	16.7	9	25.8	100
2013	618	125	100	225	843	73.3	14.8	11.9	26.7	100
2014	660	114	97	211	871	75.8	13.1	11.1	24.2	100
2015	626	148	90	238	864	72.5	17.1	10.4	27.5	100
2016	678	169	99	268	946	71.7	17.9	10.5	28.3	100
2017	763	194	135	329	1092	69.9	17.8	12.4	30.1	100
2018	750	218	128	346	1096	68.4	19.9	11.7	31.6	100
2019	697	231	152	383	1080	64.5	21.4	14.1	35.5	100
2020	691	225	163	388	1079	64	20.9	15.1	36	100
2021	710	265	170	435	1145	62	23.1	14.8	38	100
2022	621	261	161	422	1043	59.5	25	15.4	40.5	100
2023	594	256	225	481	1075	55.3	23.8	20.9	44.7	100
Total	14,619	2,839	1,979	4,818	20,581

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For articles and presentations related to the ESO Telescope Bibliography, see http://www.eso.org/sci/libraries/useful_links/publications.html

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Cite as:

Grothkopf, U.; Meakins, S.; Escarlate, N.; Saldias, L. (2024). Basic ESO Publication Statistics. European Southern Observatory (ESO). https://doi.org/10.18727/docs/12

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