Ranking scientists (original) (raw)

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• Published: 03 November 2015

Nature Physics volume 11, pages 882–883 (2015)Cite this article

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The ranking of scientists is largely based on J. E. Hirsch's index1 to measure “an individual's scientific research output”. If a researcher's papers are ranked in descending order by the number of times cited, c r, where r = 1, 2, ... N, then the Hirsch index, h, is the maximum r such that c r ≥ r. This measure boasts one clear advantage over the total number of citations, C, as a measure of scientific productivity: it doesn't require knowledge of a scientist's complete citation record. Unfortunately, although it reasonably ignores the tail of the citation record, its major drawback is that it neglects a researcher's most cited works2,3 — giving it a reputation as an imprecise, but nonetheless useful metric of scientific productivity4.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. The Physics Department and I3N at the University of Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810-193, Portugal
   S. N. Dorogovtsev & J. F. F. Mendes
2. The Ioffe Institute, St. Petersburg, 194021, Russia
   S. N. Dorogovtsev

Authors

1. S. N. Dorogovtsev
2. J. F. F. Mendes

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Correspondence toS. N. Dorogovtsev or J. F. F. Mendes.

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Dorogovtsev, S., Mendes, J. Ranking scientists.Nature Phys 11, 882–883 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3533

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• Published: 03 November 2015
• Issue date: November 2015
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3533

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