Scientific Research Measures

28 Pages Posted: 2 Jul 2013 Last revised: 30 Jan 2015

See all articles by Marco Frittelli

Marco Frittelli

University of Florence - Dipartimento di Matematica

Loriano Mancini

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI Lugano); Swiss Finance Institute

Ilaria Peri

University of London - Economics, Mathematics and Statistics

Date Written: January 29, 2015

Abstract

The evaluation of scientific research is crucial for both the academic community and society as a whole. Numerous bibliometric indices have been proposed for the ranking of research performance, mainly on an ad hoc basis. We now introduce the novel class of Scientific Research Measures (SRMs) to rank scientists’ research performance and provide a rigorous theoretical foundation for these measures. In contrast to many bibliometric indices, SRMs take into account the whole citation curve of the scientist, offer appealing structural properties, allow a finer ranking of scientists, correspond to specific features of different disciplines, research areas and seniorities, and include several bibliometric indices as special cases. Thus SRMs result in more accurate rankings than ad hoc bibliometric indices. We also introduce the further general class of Dual SRMs that reflect the “value” of journals and permit the ranking of research institutions based on theoretically sound criteria, which has been a central theme in the scientific community over recent decades. An empirical application to the citation curves of 173 finance scholars shows that SRMs can be easily calibrated to actual citation curves and generate different authors’ rankings than those produced by seven traditional bibliometric indices.

The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2535257

Keywords: Research Performance, Scientific Impact Measures, Bibliometric Indices, Citations, Calibration

JEL Classification: C02, I20

Suggested Citation

Frittelli, Marco and Mancini, Loriano and Peri, Ilaria, Scientific Research Measures (January 29, 2015). Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 13-37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2287672 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2287672

Marco Frittelli (Contact Author)

University of Florence - Dipartimento di Matematica ( email )

via Lombroso 6/17
50134 Firenze, I-50134
Italy

Loriano Mancini

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI Lugano) ( email )

Via Giuseppe Buffi 6
6904 Lugano, CH-6904
Switzerland
+41 (0)91 912 46 47 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.people.usi.ch/mancil/

Swiss Finance Institute ( email )

c/o University of Geneva
40, Bd du Pont-d'Arve
CH-1211 Geneva 4
Switzerland

Ilaria Peri

University of London - Economics, Mathematics and Statistics ( email )

United States

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