Published in Nature in April 2015 (Hicks et al., 'Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics'), the Manifesto distils a decade of scientometrics into ten guidelines, including: quantitative evaluation should support qualitative expert assessment; measure performance against the research missions of the institution, group or researcher; protect excellence in locally relevant research; keep data collection and analytical processes open, transparent and simple; allow those evaluated to verify data and analysis; account for variation by field in publication and citation practices; base assessment of individual researchers on a qualitative judgement of their portfolio; avoid misplaced concreteness and false precision; recognise systemic effects of assessment and indicators; and scrutinise indicators regularly and update them.
References
- Hicks D, Wouters P, Waltman L, de Rijcke S, Rafols I. Nature 520:429-431, 2015 (doi:10.1038/520429a). leidenmanifesto.org.