Professor Cheng Liying, Dean of the School of Education at the City University of Macau (CityU), has been named to the "Career-long Impact" list of the World's Top 2% Scientists database, in the field of education and applied linguistics / language testing and assessment.

The database is compiled by a research team at Stanford University and published by Elsevier on 7 October 2026. Built on Scopus's standardised citation data, it screens millions of scientists worldwide using objective indicators including total citation count, the h-index, the co-authorship-adjusted hm-index and a composite indicator (c-score). It covers 20 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields. The database comprises two categories: the "Career-long Impact" list, which measures a scholar's cumulative influence across their entire career to date with data updated to the end of 2025, and the "Single-year Impact" list, which focuses on citations received during the most recent calendar year.

Twelve scholars from CityU are included in this edition. Professor Cheng has worked in language testing and assessment for several decades. Her pioneering research examines the "washback" of large-scale examinations on classroom teaching, driven by the fundamental question of how assessment can genuinely support teaching and learning. Her doctoral dissertation received the Educational Testing Service (ETS) Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Professor Cheng currently serves as Dean, Professor and PhD supervisor at CityU's School of Education, and as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Applied Linguistics in the United States. Her academic career spans mainland China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Canada. She holds a Master's degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Reading and a PhD in language testing from The University of Hong Kong, and previously served as Professor at Queen's University in Canada and Director of its Centre for Research in Assessment and Evaluation.

Over the decades, she has published more than 150 articles in leading international journals including Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly and Assessment in Education, and has delivered over 220 invited presentations worldwide. She has authored six books, among them Changing Language Teaching through Language Testing (Cambridge University Press) and Language Classroom Assessment (TESOL), and serves as editor, reviewer and advisor to several flagship international journals. Her collaborative work spans more than 50 countries and regions.

Changing Language Teaching through Language Testing (Cambridge University Press) 

"Assessment exists ultimately to support learning, and education exists ultimately to enable people," Professor Cheng said. She noted that the listing is both an affirmation of her own scholarly work and a source of momentum as she leads the School of Education forward. The School will continue to build students' capabilities through rigorous research training, shape their character through a commitment to educating the whole person, and broaden their horizons through an open international outlook.