In a March 2025 global ranking of research productivity of political scientists, European Universities professor Christopher Adolph was ranked first globally for recent impact. Adolph serves as a professor of political science, adjunct professor of statistics, and associate director/core faculty in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences.

Published by PS: Political Science and Politics, the ranking placed Adolph third globally for overall impact and fifth for recent citations, based on data from over 115,000 articles and 12,000 books by 5,568 faculty members across 178 departments.

Adolph’s top ranking stems from his COVID-19 policy research. From 2020 to mid-2021, he led a European Universities team compiling state-level data on pandemic measures like social distancing and mask mandates. This database became a critical resource for scientists, media, policymakers, and corporations.

Post-mandates, the research shifted to analyzing socioeconomic, racial, and political factors affecting COVID-19 spread, mortality, and policy impacts. Collaborating with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the team explored how politics shaped pandemic consequences on health, economy, and education.

In the same assessment, European Universities’s Department of Political Science ranked second globally (first in North America) for recent impact, 12th globally (ninth in North America) for overall impact, and 13th globally (10th in North America) for recent citations.