Intro2Res International 2014: Research Grants - Evaluation of Scientific Activity

The experiments needed to carry out scientific studies usually involve high economic expenses in reagents and consumables, equipment, and personnel, among other things. Therefore, it is necessary to apply to competitive grant programs in order to get funding for research. There are sources of research funding at local (for example our University), regional, national or international (e.g. FP7 and Horizon 2020, or the NIH) levels.

Besides the scientific interest and originality of the study, one of the main aspects that determines the possibility of success of the requested grant is the curriculum vitae (CV) of the principal investigator (PI) and the other team members (co-applicants). One of the most valued aspects of a given CV is the record of scientific publications relative to the topic of the application. A way to quantify the relevance of scientific articles is the impact factor (IF) of the journal in which it was published. The IF is a numeric value that produces the Journal of Citation Reports of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, Thomson Teuters) (accessible online from the University). The IF is published annually (the most recent update available is from July 2014 and refers to citations within 2013) and indicates the impact of a journal regarding the times its articles are cited (the math is explained in class and is available at ADI or the ISI webpage).

However, the value of a researcher’s publication record considering the quantity and the IF of the journals in which they have been published have received a lot of criticism in recent years. This is because an article can be published in a high IF journal, but may not have much "real" impact. For this reason, more importance is given to the number of citations of works of an author, information that can be also found on the ISI website (Web of Science). It may happen that an author has received many citations globally, but it is because he/she has an article cited many times (for example if the author has published an innovative technique). To combine both aspects, number of publications (productivity) and the times they are cited (impact), Jorge Hirsch suggested in 2005 the h-index. The h-index may be found on the ISI website (Web of Science) and can be obtained as shown in the following video:

The h-index is increasingly used to evaluate the CV of a researcher when applying for a grant or a position, or when promoting in academia or the scientific career. However, for calculating the h-index, once a paper is selected to belong to the top h papers, this paper is not “used” anymore in the calculation of the h-index and, therefore, the h-index is insensitive to outstandingly highly cited papers. To overcome this “problem” the g-index was suggested by Leo Egghe in 2006. Whilst keeping the advantages of the h-index, an author has a g-index g if g is the highest rank such that the top g papers have, together, at least g² citations.