Abstract
We extend the pioneering work of J. E. Hirsch, the inventor of the h-index, by proposing a simple and seemingly robust approach for comparing the scientific productivity and visibility of institutions. Our main findings are that i) while the h-index is a sensible criterion for comparing scientists within a given field, it does not directly extend to rank institutions of disparate sizes and journals, ii) however, the h-index, which always increases with paper population, has an universal growth rate for large numbers of papers; iii) thus the h-index of a large population of papers can be decomposed into the product of an impact index and a factor depending on the population size, iv) as a complement to the h-index, this new impact index provides an interesting way to compare the scientific production of institutions (universities, laboratories or journals).
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
ISI Web Of Knowledge, http://portal.isiknowledge.com
J. E. Hirsch (2005), An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output, Proc. Nat. Acad. Science, 102: 16569.
P. Ball (2005), Index aims for fair ranking of scientists, Nature, 436: 900.
G. Saad (2006), Exploring the h-index at the author and journal levels using bibliometric data of productive consumer scholars and business-related journals respectively, Scientometrics, 69(1): 117.
W. Glänzel (2006), On the h-index — A mathematical approach to a new measure of publication activity and citation impact, Scientometrics, 67(2): 315–321.
T. Braun, W. Glänzel, A. Schubert (2006), A Hirsch-type index for journals, Scientometrics, 69(1): 169.
M. G. Banks (2006), An extension of the Hirsch index: Indexing scientific topics and compounds, Scientometrics, 69(1): 161.
A. Molinari, J. F. Molinari (2008), Mathematical aspects of a new criterion for ranking scientific institutions based on the h-index, Scientometrics, 75(2).
Shanghai’s 2006 International university ranking: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Molinari, JF., Molinari, A. A new methodology for ranking scientific institutions. Scientometrics 75, 163–174 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1853-2
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1853-2