Institutional Contributions to the Radiology Literature: A Subspecialty Assessment Publisher Pubmed



Tafazolimoghadam A ; Radmard M ; Yousem D M ; Nadgir R
Source: Academic Radiology Published:2026

Abstract

Rationale and Objectives Academic radiologists concentrate scholarly activity within defined subspecialties, producing heterogeneous institutional research profiles. The relationship between institutional bibliometric performance and National Institutes of Health (NIH) radiology funding across subspecialties is incompletely characterized. We evaluated institutional scholarly output across U.S. radiology subspecialties and its association with NIH funding. Materials and Methods This cross-sectional study analyzed U.S. academic radiology faculty using Scopus data (March 2026). Faculty were identified from institutional websites and categorized into eight subspecialties. Institutional publications, citations, and h-index values were aggregated and compared with 2025 NIH radiology funding rankings from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research using Spearman’s rank correlation. Results 121 institutions encompassing 6488 faculty were included. Scholarly output was highly concentrated: the 5 most productive institutions accounted for 21% of publications and 23% of citations, and the top 25 for 61% and 67%. NIH funding was even more concentrated (top 5, 30%; top 25, 81%). Mayo Clinic–Rochester led in total publications (18,197) and citations (774,565). Rankings by total publications, total citations, and summed faculty h-index were closely aligned, whereas per-faculty metrics highlighted a distinct group of smaller programs. Subspecialty leadership varied substantially. Among 62 matched institutions, total publications, summed faculty h-index, total citations, and faculty count correlated most strongly with NIH funding rank (ρ = 0.748, 0.745, 0.719, and 0.702, respectively; all p < 0.001). Conclusion Radiology scholarly productivity is concentrated within a few dozen academic centers, with substantial subspecialty heterogeneity within institutions. Aggregate bibliometric indicators show moderate concordance with NIH funding, suggesting that cumulative scholarly output reflects institutional research strength. © 2026 The Association of University Radiologists.