PolyU's Institute of Textiles and Clothing tops the world in research performance and citation impact in the field, according to a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters — U.S. company producing the Science Citation Index (SCI) database.

The survey was based on 16,313 research papers relating to textiles, fashion, clothing and apparel published over the past five years by the top 500 institutions. Results showed that ITC topped the world in two performance indicators for research — highest number of citations (6,450 times) and the highest H-index of 33 (an index to measure the impact of research output).

With 862 papers published in relevant journals, ITC also ranked 2nd in terms of total number of papers published. As Prof. John Xin, ITC's Head and Chair Professor, put it, "The merits testify to our research excellence through innovative approaches for both applied and strategic research."