Scientific research measures

Evaluating scientific research is crucial for the academic community and the society at large. To rank research performance numerous bibliometric indices have been proposed, mainly on ad-hoc bases. We introduce the novel class of Scientific Research Measures (SRMs) to rank scientists’ research performance. We provide a rigorous theoretical foundation of SRMs. In contrast to many bibliometric indices, SRMs take into account the whole scientist’s citation curve, share sensible structural properties, allow for a finer ranking of scientists, fit specific features of different disciplines, research areas and seniorities, and include several bibliometric indices as special cases. Therefore by construction SRMs induce more sensible rankings than ad-hoc bibliometric indices. We also introduce the further general class of Dual SRMs that reflects “journals’ values” and allows to rank research institutions using theoretically sound criteria, which has been a central theme in the scientific community over the past decades. An empirical application to 173 finance scholars’ citation curves shows that SRMs can be easily calibrated to actual citation curves and produce different authors’ rankings than other seven traditional bibliometric indices.