Sage has awarded its seventh annual 10-Year Impact Awards, recognizing three academic papers that have demonstrated enduring influence over the decade since their publication. This year’s awards honor the most-cited articles published in Sage journals in 2015.

The 2026 winners are:

• 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

For the first time, Sage is also highlighting policy citation data from Sage Policy Profiles, a free policy tool for researchers, alongside scholarly citation counts. While policy citations played no role in selecting the winners, they provide an additional perspective on how the winning papers have shaped debates and influenced decision-making outside academia.

“Research impact in the social and behavioral sciences unfolds gradually, through complex and long-term processes that conventional metrics can struggle to capture,” said Ziyad Marar, president of global publishing at Sage. “In one attempt to redress that, the 10-Year Impact Awards recognize scholarship whose influence has endured and often grown over time. This year’s addition of policy citation data helps to illustrate another aspect of that influence, showing how research can shape thinking both within and beyond academia, and ultimately benefit society.”

The awards are part of Sage’s commitment to redefining how impact is measured and celebrated in the social and behavioral sciences. Other recent work includes:

• Sage Policy Profiles – A free tool that helps researchers discover where their work is cited in policy documents and identify opportunities to engage with policymakers in their field.
• Sage’s Most impactful articles 2014-2024 – A new ranking highlighting the Sage journal articles from the past decade with the greatest combined scholarly, policy, and public impact.
• On Measuring Social Science Impact: An Excerpt and Responses – A featured excerpt from Ziyad Marar’s essay exploring the importance of looking beyond citation-based metrics in the social and behavioral sciences, accompanied by a collection of scholarly responses.

Learn more about the awards and explore interviews with past recipients on the 10-Year Impact Awards home page.

Scholarly citation data was sourced from Dimensions and reflects citations received between 2015 and 2025. Policy citation data was sourced from Sage Policy Profiles, powered by Overton.