Research Perfomance assessment

On the basis of the data of the Bibliometric Summary, CWTS calculates output and impact indicators, for any desired aggregation level, which may range from individual researchers to entire departments or institutes, as far as made possible by the allocation codes provided by the client. These calculations yield the bibliometric basic indicators. Next to these basic indicators, we have special indicators related to research profile, scientific co-operation, most cited publications (optional), scientific excellence, knowledge users and knowledge dissemination, weighting by citing journal (optional), Hirsch-index (option), also for CI-publications.

The calculated indicators can be updated regularly. Moreover, they are completely standardized, so that comparison between different time periods, and even between different fields and/or comparison with other CWTS performance measurements is directly possible. In this way a research performance monitor can be realized. These indicators are:

P

Number of publications in international journals of the university /institute/department/group/researcher etc. in the entire period;

C an Ci

Number of citations received by P during the entire period, with and without self-citations (Ci and C);

CPP and CPPi

Average number of citations per publication, again with and without self-citations (CPPi and CPP, respectively);

%NC

Percentage of publications not cited (in the given time period);

JCSm

Journal-based worldwide average impact as an international reference level for the university/institute/department/group/researcher etc. (JCS, journal citation score), without self-citations (on this world-wide scale!);

FCSm

Field-based worldwide average impact as an international reference level for the university/institute/department/group/researcher etc. (FCS, field citation score), without self-citations (on this world-wide scale!);

CPP/JCSm

Comparison of the actually received international impact of the university/institute/department/group/researcher etc. with the world-wide average based on JCS as a standard, without self-citations;

CPP/FCSm

Comparison of the actually received international impact of the university/institute/department/group/researcher etc. with the world-wide average based on FCS as a standard, without self-citations, indicator CPP/FCS;

JCSm/FCSm

Ratio JCS/FCS as journal-level indicator, i.e., is the university/ institute/department/group/researcher etc. publishing in top or in sub-top (in terms of ‘citedness’) journals?

%SC

Percentage of self-citations.

These indicators yield direct information on crucial aspects, particularly on whether or not the performance of the client is above or below the worldwide average (dominated by US, Japan, EU) of its own research field. Furthermore, the time trends of these indicators may reveal characteristics that are important for research-management, such as the influence of breakthrough work, the effects of departure or appointment of key personnel. It is our experience that this above trend analysis with international comparison is a powerful and revealing indicator, provided that a sufficient number of publications is available for analysis.