RT Journal Article
T1 Rank analysis of most cited publications, a new approach for research assessments
A1 Rodríguez-Navarro, Alonso
A1 Brito López, Ricardo
AB Citation metrics are the best tools for research assessments. However, current metrics may bemisleading in research systems that pursue simultaneously different goals, such as to push theboundaries of knowledge or incremental innovations, because their publications have differentcitation distributions. We estimate the contribution to the progress of knowledge by studying onlya limited number of the most cited papers, which are dominated by publications pursuing thisprogress. To field-normalize the metrics, we substitute the number of citations by the rank po-sition of papers from one country in the global list of papers. Using synthetic series of lognormallydistributed numbers, simulating citations, we developed the Rk-index, which is calculated fromthe global ranks of the 10 highest numbers in each series, and demonstrate its equivalence to thenumber of papers in top percentiles, Ptop 0.1 % and Ptop 0.01 %. In real cases, the Rk-index is simpleand easy to calculate, and evaluates the contribution to the progress of knowledge better than lessstringent metrics. Although further research is needed, rank analysis of the most cited papers is apromising approach for research evaluation. It is also demonstrated that, for this purpose, do-mestic and collaborative papers should be studied independently.
PB Elsevier
SN 1751-1577
YR 2024
FD 2024-02-02
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/99124
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/99124
LA eng
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 21 abr 2025