Dictionary domainTrack E
Responsible research assessment
DORA, COARA, R4RI, narrative CVs.
For implementers
Operational deployment checklist for Responsible research assessment: prerequisites, five deploy steps, integration notes for Pure, Symplectic Elements, Worktribe, DSpace, and more, plus the pitfalls that recur in the field.
Terms in this domain
96 terms
Publish or Perish (Harzing’s citation-analysis software)
Publish or Perish is a free desktop program, created by Anne-Wil Harzing and first released in October 2006, that queries academic data sources (as of version 8: Google Scholar, Google Scholar Profile, Crossref, PubMed, OpenAlex, Lens.org, Scopus, Semantic Scholar, and Web of Science) for a given author, journal, or search term, then calculates citation-based metrics such as the h-index and g-index from whatever results are returned. It holds no citation data itself and is not a database, persistent identifier registry, or CRIS -- it is a query-and-calculate client for other providers' data, so results vary by which source was queried and change over time as underlying citation counts change.
H-Index Inflation
H-index inflation is a rise in a researcher's <a href='/dictionary/term/h-index'>h-index</a> that is driven mainly by co-authorship on a small number of very-large-team papers, rather than by a broader pattern of individually-led, independently cited work. Because the h-index counts a paper toward every listed co-author identically regardless of team size or individual contribution, a researcher who appears as one name among several hundred or several thousand co-authors on a heavily-cited paper receives the same per-paper credit as a sole author of an equally-cited paper. An h-index is flagged as inflated, in bibliometric practice, when a meaningful share of the citing papers behind it trace back to a handful of hyperauthored publications rather than to a broad base of independent outputs -- a distinction visible on inspection of the underlying publication list, not from the index number alone.
SPRE (Strategy, People and Research Environment)
SPRE is the REF 2029 assessment element scoring the conditions an institution and its submitting units put in place to enable research, replacing REF 2021's Environment element (REF5a/REF5b). It is worth 20% of the overall REF 2029 quality profile, combining an Institution-Level Statement (ILS, 60% of the SPRE score) and a Unit-Level Statement (ULS, 40%), each covering context/mission/strategy, people, income/infrastructure/facilities, and collaboration/engagement/impact. Guidance is still being finalised through 2026.
Reviewer Recognition Programs
A reviewer recognition program is a formal mechanism -- run by a publisher, a cross-publisher platform, or a professional society -- that creates a documented, and often verifiable and portable, record of a researcher's peer review activity. It exists because manuscript peer review is, by scholarly-publishing convention, unpaid, uncredited, confidential volunteer labor: an editor solicits a review, the reviewer submits comments, and outside the editor's own records nothing else normally happens. A reviewer recognition program is anything that closes that gap with a verifiable artifact -- a certificate, a platform-logged review history, or a portable credit entry -- that the reviewer can point to, as distinct from an informal 'thank you' with no lasting or checkable record.
CoARA Signatories
An organisation that has formally signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and thereby joined the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), as distinct from an organisation that merely endorses the Agreement's principles informally.
Heliyon’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Heliyon's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Heliyon, launched by Elsevier/Cell Press in 2015, is a broad-scope, open-access megajournal that peer-reviews submissions for technical and ethical soundness rather than for perceived novelty or likely impact, and explicitly welcomes negative/null results, incremental advances, and replication studies across essentially all scientific and medical disciplines. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Heliyon's 2024 JCR data-year Impact Factor (2025 release) at approximately 4.3, up from a lower prior-year figure, alongside a separately computed 2024 CiteScore (Elsevier/Scopus) of approximately 4.2. CASRAI could not independently confirm either figure directly against Cell Press's own Heliyon journal page or jcr.clarivate.com at the time this entry was written -- Heliyon's official page returned an access error during verification. Treat both numbers as reported, not CASRAI-verified, and check Heliyon's own journal page or jcr.clarivate.com directly for the current, authoritative figure before citing one in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
<p>The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of <em>Environmental Science and Pollution Research</em> (ESPR) is the Clarivate-calculated, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) metric for this Springer (Springer Nature) journal, covering environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology, and pollution-monitoring research. Per third-party JCR-tracking aggregators (Research.com, BioxBio, Resurchify) rather than a direct jcr.clarivate.com subscription check this session, ESPR's JIF rose through the early 2020s -- from roughly 2.6 in 2012 to about 5.8 for the 2022 JCR data year -- before falling to an aggregator-reported figure of approximately 5.59 for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release), a decline these sources describe as consistent with a broader multi-year retrenchment across the journal's citation counts. As with any single aggregator-sourced figure, treat the exact decimal as indicative rather than authoritative until cross-checked against Clarivate's own JCR platform, and note that a journal's JIF is only ever one input into assessing where to submit or how to read a single paper's citation context -- not a substitute for reading the paper itself.</p>
PLOS Pathogens’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
PLOS Pathogens' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio PLOS Pathogens receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Third-party JCR-tracking services report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 release) of approximately 4.7-4.9 and a 2025 data-year figure (2026 release, issued June 2026) of approximately 4.9, with a five-year Impact Factor near 5.4, placing the journal in JCR Quartile 1 for microbiology -- but these are reported, not CASRAI-verified against PLOS's own page or jcr.clarivate.com directly, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. PLOS Pathogens is a selective, subject-specific PLOS title (launched September 2005) restricted to research on pathogens and host-pathogen interaction, distinct from both the broad-scope selective flagship PLOS Biology and the soundness-only multidisciplinary megajournal PLOS ONE -- which is important context because neither of those sibling titles' JIFs describes PLOS Pathogens, even though all three share a publisher and the same Clarivate methodology.
Nature Cancer’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Nature Cancer's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the Nature Cancer journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to Nature Cancer's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Independent JCR-tracking aggregators report Nature Cancer's 2-year Impact Factor at approximately 14.3 for the JCR release covering 2024 data, with several aggregators reporting a further jump to approximately 28.0 for the most recent release (2025 data, released June 2026) -- an unusually large year-over-year increase worth treating cautiously. nature.com's own journal-information page could not be directly confirmed for this draft (login-gated), so treat these figures as reported rather than independently verified, and check jcr.clarivate.com or nature.com/natcancer before citing formally. Nature Cancer is a distinct, separately scored journal from Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and the other Nature Portfolio titles published by Springer Nature, and is also a separate journal from the similarly-named Nature Reviews Cancer. Per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in Nature Cancer or the merit of its authors.
The Lancet’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
The Lancet's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the flagship Lancet journal (published by Elsevier since 1823, ISSN 0140-6736 print / 1474-547X online) receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. This term covers only the flagship Lancet title; the wider Lancet family (The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet Neurology, The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Digital Health, and others) consists of separately edited, separately JCR-indexed journals each with its own distinct Impact Factor, not covered individually here. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators and Wikipedia's journal infobox report figures that diverge across releases and trackers -- roughly 88.5 attributed to the 2024 JCR data year and roughly 109.0 attributed to the 2025 data year have both been seen, inconsistently labeled -- and CASRAI has not independently reconciled these against a single primary source (jcr.clarivate.com is subscription-gated; thelancet.com's own journal-information page was not independently confirmed at the time of writing). Treat any single number you see cited as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or thelancet.com directly for the current, release-dated figure before citing it in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article The Lancet has published, nor of the researchers who authored it.
mBio’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
mBio's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the two-year citation ratio Clarivate calculates and publishes annually in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) for mBio, the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) broad-scope, gold open-access microbiology journal (ISSN 2150-7511, inaugural issue published 18 May 2010, founding Editor-in-Chief Arturo Casadevall). Because ASM does not publish the underlying JCR figure on the journal's own homepage, an instance of 'mBio's JIF' as used on this site means whichever figure the current JCR release actually reports for mBio, cross-checked across independent tracker sites rather than taken from a single aggregator, since third-party trackers do not always agree with each other or with the prior year's release in the interim before the next JCR update.
Cureus’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cureus's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- with one important current wrinkle: Cureus does not have an active JIF as of this writing. Cureus (ISSN 2168-8184), an open-access general medical journal owned by Springer Nature since December 2022, was placed 'on hold' by Clarivate in September 2024 and formally removed from the Web of Science Master Journal List in October 2025, following a period of substantial retraction activity and stated article-quality concerns. Removal from Web of Science means Cureus no longer accrues the citation counts a JIF is calculated from and does not receive a JCR figure for 2025 or any subsequent year. Before delisting, third-party JCR-tracking aggregators reported Cureus's most recent 2-year JIF variously as approximately 1.2 (attributed to the 2022 JCR release) and approximately 1.3 (attributed to a 2024 release), figures that do not fully agree with one another the way most stable, currently-indexed journals' aggregator figures do. Any impact-factor number for Cureus found online should be treated as historical, not current, and checked against Clarivate's live Master Journal List rather than cited as an active figure.
Journal of Neuroscience’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
The Journal of Neuroscience's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio that JNeurosci -- the flagship weekly research journal of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) -- receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR): citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. The journal (ISSN 0270-6474 print, 1529-2401 online) has published continuously since 1981 and is indexed in Clarivate's Science Citation Index Expanded, which makes it JIF-eligible on the same mechanical basis as every other JCR-indexed title. Aggregator trackers (bioxbio.com, Wikipedia's infobox citing JCR) converge on a 2024 JIF of approximately 4.0, down from a reported peak near 6.7-6.9 in 2012-2013 -- a multi-year decline consistent with a broader pattern of JIF compression across many established neuroscience and biomedical titles as the denominator (citable items) and citation landscape have shifted. Treat any single figure as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or the journal's own page at jneurosci.org directly for the current, release-dated number before citing it in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article the Journal of Neuroscience has published, nor of the researchers who authored it.
Blood (ASH Journal)’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Blood's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio that Blood -- the flagship, weekly peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) -- receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR): citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. This entry is specifically about Blood the hematology journal (ISSN 0006-4971 print, 1528-0020 online), published continuously by ASH since 1946 -- not about the common noun 'blood' or any life-sciences journal with a similar-sounding title. Blood is indexed in Clarivate's Science Citation Index Expanded, which makes it JIF-eligible on the same mechanical basis as any other JCR-indexed title. Reported figures for Blood's current JIF diverge across sources: ASH's own hematology.org materials have cited a figure near 23.9, third-party JCR-tracking aggregators (BioxBio, JournalsInsights, journalmetrics.org) show figures in roughly the 20-24 range for recent releases, and one ASH-affiliated page referenced 21.0 tied to the 2023 JCR release. These differences most likely reflect different JCR release years and aggregator caching lag rather than disagreement about the underlying data -- the same pattern seen across most single-journal JIF pages. Treat any one number as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and confirm the current, release-dated figure directly against ashpublications.org/blood or jcr.clarivate.com before citing it formally.
PLOS Biology’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
PLOS Biology's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio PLOS Biology receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Third-party JCR-tracking services report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 release) of approximately 5.5 and a 2025 data-year figure (2026 release, issued June 2026) in the roughly 6.9-7.2 range depending on tracker, placing the journal in JCR Quartile 1 (top 25%) for its category -- but these are reported, not CASRAI-verified against PLOS's own page or jcr.clarivate.com directly, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. Unlike its PLOS sibling title PLOS ONE, PLOS Biology is a selective flagship journal that peer-reviews for perceived significance and broad interest within biology alongside technical soundness, publishing a small fraction of what it receives -- which is important context because a selectively curated journal's citation profile is not directly comparable to a high-volume megajournal's, even when both carry a JIF from the same Clarivate methodology.
Neuron’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Neuron's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the Cell Press neuroscience journal Neuron receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Neuron (ISSN 0896-6273 print, 1097-4199 online) is Cell Press's flagship neuroscience title, published continuously since 1988, and it is distinct from Cell and other Cell Press journals -- each carries its own separately computed JIF. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators (journalmetrics.org, bioxbio.com) and Wikipedia's infobox summary of JCR data converge on a 2-year JIF of approximately 15.0 for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release), with a reported 5-year JIF near 16.6 (single-source, not independently cross-corroborated) and JCR Quartile 1 placement in neuroscience. Treat any single number cited as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/metrics for the current, authoritative figure before citing it in a formal context. Per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Cancer Discovery’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cancer Discovery's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the AACR journal Cancer Discovery receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Per journal-metrics tracker data reflecting the JCR release, Cancer Discovery's reported Impact Factor was approximately 29.5 for the 2025 JCR data year (Clarivate's June 2026 release), following a reported 33.3 for the 2024 data year and 29.7 for the 2023 data year -- Clarivate updates this figure every June, so treat any single number, including these, as time-stamped to a specific release rather than a fixed property of the journal. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Cancer Cell’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cancer Cell is a peer-reviewed oncology and cancer-biology journal published by Cell Press (an Elsevier imprint), first issued in 2002 (ISSN 1535-6108 print / 1878-3686 online). Its Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (JCR) metric calculated as the mean number of citations, in the JCR year, to articles the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of citable items in that window. Per Clarivate's JCR (as reported via Wikipedia's sourced infobox and corroborated by independent JIF-aggregator sites), Cancer Cell's most recently released JIF is 56.1, based on 2025 citation data (2026 JCR release) -- up from a reported 44.5 for the 2024 data year (2025 release). Always confirm the current figure directly against Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports (subscription-gated) or the publisher's own journal page before citing it in a CV, grant application, or promotion dossier, since JIF is recalculated annually and aggregator sites can lag or round the official release.
Current Biology’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Current Biology's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the <a href='/dictionary/term/journal-citation-reports'>Journal Citation Reports (JCR)</a>. Current Biology is a Cell Press biweekly life-sciences journal (Cell Press became part of Elsevier in 1998/2001) launched in 1991 (ISSN 0960-9822), covering molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Its JIF is calculated and reported entirely independently of the JIF for Cell Press's founding flagship journal, <a href='/dictionary/term/cell-impact-factor'>Cell</a>, even though both share the Cell Press imprint. See the general <a href='/dictionary/term/journal-impact-factor'>Journal Impact Factor</a> entry for how the metric is defined and its well-documented limitations as a research-assessment tool.
Frontiers in Immunology’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Frontiers in Immunology's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual Clarivate Journal Citation Reports metric for this Frontiers Media open-access immunology journal, currently reported by the publisher's own journal page as 7.0 for the 2025 JCR data year (June 2026 release), up from 5.9 for the 2024 data year -- a title whose reported JIF has moved unusually widely release to release, so the current figure should be confirmed directly against Clarivate before formal citation.
Advanced Materials’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Advanced Materials' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual two-year citation metric Clarivate publishes for the journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR): citations in a given JCR year to Advanced Materials articles published in the preceding two years, divided by the number of citable items Advanced Materials published in those two years. Advanced Materials is a materials-science journal published by Wiley-VCH since 1989 (independent from an earlier Angewandte Chemie supplement dating to 1988; ISSN 0935-9648 print, 1521-4095 online); its reported JIF was 26.8 for the 2024 JCR data year per Wikipedia's JCR-sourced infobox.
JAMA Network Open’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
JAMA Network Open's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. It is a separate, independently computed figure from the flagship JAMA journal's own JIF, and the two should never be quoted interchangeably. Third-party JCR-tracking services report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 JCR release) of approximately 10.5 and a 2025 data-year figure (2026 JCR release, issued June 2026) of approximately 11.7, with the journal placed in JCR Quartile 1 -- but these are reported, not CASRAI-verified directly against jamanetworkopen.com or jcr.clarivate.com, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. JAMA Network Open launched in 2018 as an open-access, general-medicine title within the JAMA Network family published by the American Medical Association (AMA); unlike the subscription-model flagship JAMA, it publishes open access across all areas of medicine rather than a curated weekly selection, which shapes how its citation volume accumulates relative to JAMA's.
International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS) Impact Factor (JIF)
The Impact Factor (JIF) of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IJMS) is the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) metric Clarivate publishes for this MDPI-owned title, calculated as the average number of 2026 citations to articles IJMS published in 2024-2025, divided by the number of citable items it published in those two years. As of the most recent JCR release (June 2026, covering 2025 citation data), third-party trackers that mirror Clarivate's JCR figures report a 2-year Impact Factor of approximately 5.6 and a 5-year Impact Factor of approximately 6.3, placing IJMS in JCR Quartile 1 (Q1) of the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology category. CASRAI did not independently fetch jcr.clarivate.com for this figure (subscription-gated); treat the number as REPORTED-tier, cross-corroborated across multiple independent JCR-tracking sites rather than confirmed directly against Clarivate's own portal, and re-verify before citing it in a high-stakes context such as a promotion or tenure file.
Nucleic Acids Research’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Nucleic Acids Research's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual two-year citation metric Clarivate publishes for the journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR): citations in a given JCR year to Nucleic Acids Research articles published in the preceding two years, divided by the number of citable items the journal published in those two years. Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) is an open-access, biweekly molecular biology and biochemistry journal published by Oxford University Press since 1974 (ISSN 0305-1048 print, 1362-4962 online). Its reported JIF has sat in the low-to-mid-teens across recent JCR releases; Wikipedia's infobox (sourced to JCR) lists 15.0 for the release covering 2024 citation data, though other secondary summaries have reported a lower figure near 13.1 for what is nominally the same data year -- a cross-tracker discrepancy CASRAI has not independently resolved against a live jcr.clarivate.com subscription this session.
JCI Insight’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
JCI Insight's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual Clarivate-calculated citation ratio published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) for JCI Insight specifically -- the open-access companion journal launched in 2016 by the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), distinct from ASCI's flagship title, the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI). Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report JCI Insight's most recent JIF at approximately 6.8, up from approximately 5.99 the prior release; treat these as REPORTED-tier figures corroborated across independent trackers rather than a figure CASRAI has confirmed directly against a live jcr.clarivate.com session, and always check the current release before citing a specific number in a CV, tenure file, or funder report.
New England Journal of Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
The New England Journal of Medicine's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the Massachusetts Medical Society's flagship clinical-medicine journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. NEJM (ISSN 0028-4793 print, 1533-4406 online) has published continuously since 1812, making it one of the oldest continuously published medical journals in the world, and is indexed in Clarivate's Science Citation Index Expanded, which makes it JIF-eligible. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report NEJM's 2-year JIF in the high-70s to mid-80s range for recent releases -- figures cited include roughly 78.5 and roughly 84.5 for figures described as the '2025 impact factor,' attributed inconsistently to the 2025 versus 2026 JCR release across different aggregator pages -- with a reported 5-year JIF near 84.9. These aggregator figures do not agree with one another even when describing what appears to be the same release, and NEJM's own journal-information page was not independently reachable to confirm one authoritative figure at the time of writing (returned an access-restricted response during verification). Treat any single number you see cited as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or nejm.org directly for the current, release-dated figure before citing it in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article NEJM has published, nor of the researchers who authored it.
Cell Reports Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cell Reports Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio this journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — citations in the JCR data year to the journal’s citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Cell Reports Medicine is a Cell Press open-access journal, launched in 2020, publishing translational and clinical biomedical research — distinct from its broader-scope sister title Cell Reports, which covers life sciences generally and carries its own separate JIF. Multiple third-party JCR-tracking aggregators converge on a figure of approximately 14.0 for the 2025 JCR data year (Clarivate’s June 2026 release), placing the journal in JCR Quartile 1, but CASRAI was not able to independently confirm this against jcr.clarivate.com (subscription-gated) or reach Cell Press’s own metrics page directly at the time of writing, so treat this as a cross-corroborated but secondary-source figure rather than a primary-verified one. Clarivate updates JCR every June; check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/cell-reports-medicine for the current, release-dated figure before citing a number in a formal context. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
ACS Nano’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
ACS Nano's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the annual two-year citation metric Clarivate publishes for the journal in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR): citations in a given JCR year to ACS Nano articles published in the preceding two years, divided by the number of citable items ACS Nano published in those two years. ACS Nano is a nanoscience and nanotechnology journal published by the American Chemical Society since 2007 (ISSN 1936-0851 print, 1936-086X online); its reported JIF has sat in the mid-to-high-teens range across recent JCR releases (approximately 16.0 for the 2024 data year per secondary trackers, up from a reported 15.8 for 2023).
Cancer Research’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cancer Research's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the AACR journal Cancer Research receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Per Clarivate/JCR data reflected in the journal's public profile, Cancer Research's reported Impact Factor for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release) was 22.6; Clarivate updates this figure every June, so treat the number as time-stamped to a specific release, not a fixed property of the journal -- verify the current figure at the journal's own metrics page or jcr.clarivate.com before citing it formally. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Nature Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Nature Medicine's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the Nature Medicine journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to Nature Medicine's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Multiple independent JCR-tracking aggregators report Nature Medicine's 2-year Impact Factor at approximately 79.6 for the most recent JCR release, down from a pandemic-era peak of roughly 87.2; nature.com's own journal-information page could not be directly confirmed for this draft (login-gated), so treat the figure as reported rather than independently verified, and check jcr.clarivate.com or nature.com/nm for the current number before citing it formally. Nature Medicine is a distinct, separately scored journal from Nature, Nature Communications, and the other 60-plus Nature Portfolio titles published by Springer Nature -- a JIF reported for a sister journal is never Nature Medicine's own figure. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in Nature Medicine or the merit of its authors.
Science Translational Medicine’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Science Translational Medicine's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Third-party JCR-tracking sources and journal-affiliated summaries report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 JCR release) of approximately 14.6, though at least one independent aggregator lists a close but distinct figure near 13.6 for the same data year -- these are reported, not CASRAI-verified directly against jcr.clarivate.com, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in Science Translational Medicine or the merit of its authors.
Communications Biology’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Communications Biology's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the Springer Nature journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Communications Biology (ISSN 2399-3642) is a Nature Portfolio, fully open-access, broad-scope biology journal launched in 2018, and it is a distinct title from Nature Communications despite the similar name -- each carries its own separately computed JIF, and the two should never be cited interchangeably. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Communications Biology's 2-year JIF at approximately 5.1 for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release) and approximately 5.8 for the 2025 JCR data year (2026 release, issued June 2026), placing the journal in JCR Quartile 1 within its category. CASRAI could not independently confirm either figure directly against Nature Portfolio's own journal-impact page (nature.com/commsbio/journal-impact), which sits behind an account-gated redirect, or against jcr.clarivate.com directly, at the time this entry was written -- treat both numbers as reported, not CASRAI-verified, and check the journal's own metrics page or jcr.clarivate.com for the current, release-dated figure before citing one in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Journal of Clinical Investigation’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI)'s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is that specific journal's own annual Clarivate metric -- citations in a given year to the articles and reviews it published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items -- published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It is a single journal's instance of the general JIF metric, not a separate calculation method, and it changes with every annual JCR release (Clarivate updates JCR every June).
Cell’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cell's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the flagship Cell Press journal Cell receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Cell (ISSN 0092-8674) is Cell Press's founding, subscription/hybrid flagship life-sciences journal, published continuously since 1974, and it is distinct from Cell Reports, Cell Press's open-access sister journal launched in 2012 -- each carries its own separately computed JIF. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Cell's 2-year JIF in the low-to-mid 40s (figures cited include roughly 42.5 for the 2024 JCR data year and roughly 45.1 for the 2025 JCR data year), with a reported 5-year JIF near 48.9 and JCR Quartile 1 placement in cell biology, but these aggregator figures diverge from one another and Cell Press's own metrics page was not independently reachable to confirm one authoritative figure at the time of writing. Treat any single number you see cited as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/metrics for the current, authoritative figure before citing it in a formal context. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
PLOS ONE’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
PLOS ONE's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio PLOS ONE receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Third-party JCR-tracking services report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 release) of approximately 2.6 and a 2025 data-year figure (2026 release, issued June 2026) of approximately 2.8, placing the journal in JCR Quartile 2 for Multidisciplinary Sciences -- but these are reported, not CASRAI-verified against PLOS's own page or jcr.clarivate.com directly, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. PLOS ONE is also a megajournal that peer-reviews for scientific and methodological soundness rather than perceived novelty or impact, which is important context: because acceptance does not turn on subjective significance, a single journal-level average citation figure describes an unusually broad and heterogeneous body of published work even more than it does for a conventionally curated journal. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in PLOS ONE or the merit of its authors.
Cell Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Cell Reports' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Cell Reports receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Cell Reports is a Cell Press (Elsevier) open-access, broad-scope life-sciences journal, and its JIF has placed it in JCR Quartile 1 for Cell Biology in recent releases; third-party JCR-tracking services report figures in roughly the high-6-to-8 range across the last several JCR releases, but they do not agree on an exact current figure, and Cell Press's own site was not independently reachable to confirm one at the time of writing. Treat any single number you see cited as time-stamped to a specific JCR release -- Clarivate updates JCR every June -- and check jcr.clarivate.com or the journal's own metrics page at cell.com/cell-reports for the current, authoritative figure before citing it in a formal context. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Science Advances’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Science Advances' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Science Advances receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Third-party JCR-tracking services report a 2024 data-year figure (2025 release) of roughly 12.1-12.5 and a 2025 data-year figure (2026 release) of approximately 13.9, placing the journal in JCR Quartile 1 for Multidisciplinary Sciences -- but these are reported, not CASRAI-verified against AAAS's own page or jcr.clarivate.com directly, and should be confirmed there before formal citation. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in Science Advances or the merit of its authors.
Nature’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Nature's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the flagship Nature journal receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to Nature's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Multiple independent JCR-tracking aggregators report Nature's 2-year Impact Factor at approximately 56.1 for the most recent JCR release (2025 citation data, released June 2026), up from approximately 48.5 the prior release; nature.com's own journal-information page could not be directly confirmed for this draft (login-gated), so treat the figure as reported rather than independently verified, and check jcr.clarivate.com or nature.com for the current number before citing it formally. Nature is a distinct, separately scored journal from Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, and the other 60-plus Nature Portfolio titles published by Springer Nature -- a JIF reported for a sister journal is never Nature's own figure. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in Nature or the merit of its authors.
Scientific Reports’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Scientific Reports' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Scientific Reports receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. Multiple independent JCR-tracking services report the 2-year Impact Factor rose to approximately 4.9 in the most recent JCR release (2025 citation data, released June 2026), up from approximately 3.9 the prior release; this figure was not independently confirmed against Nature Portfolio's own metrics page for this draft, so treat it as reported rather than verified, and check the journal's own page or jcr.clarivate.com before citing it formally. Scientific Reports is a large, open-access, multidisciplinary Nature Portfolio journal that accepts submissions on technical soundness rather than perceived novelty, so per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in it.
Nature Communications’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
Nature Communications' Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio Nature Communications receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count. As of the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release), Nature Communications' reported 2-year Impact Factor was 15.7 (5-year: 17.2), placing it in JCR Quartile 1; Clarivate updates this figure every June, so treat the number as time-stamped to a specific release, not a fixed property of the journal. Per DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.
Journal Citation Indicator (JCI)
A journal's Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) is the field-normalized citation-impact score Clarivate calculates for it as part of each annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) release. It measures the average citation impact of a journal's citable items published in the most recent three-year window, normalized against the average citation rate for all similarly-aged papers of the same document type in the same JCR subject category. A journal qualifies for a JCI if it is indexed in a JCR-eligible Web of Science Core Collection index (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, or ESCI) with enough citable output in the relevant window for Clarivate to calculate a normalized rate. The score is a decimal where 1.0 equals the world average for that category and document type: a JCI of 1.5 means the journal's papers are cited 50% more than the world average for comparable papers in that field, and a JCI of 0.5 means cited half as often.
Scite (Smart Citations)
Scite is a commercial citation-analysis platform whose core feature, Smart Citations, uses a trained natural-language-processing (deep learning) model to classify each individual citing statement of a paper as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning the claim it cites, and displays the actual citation-context sentence alongside that classification. A citation is a Scite Smart Citation, specifically, when it comes with (a) the excerpted sentence from the citing paper that references the cited work, and (b) a supporting/contrasting/mentioning label assigned to that specific citing statement -- not just a tally of how many times the work has been cited.
Citation Impact
The extent to which a research output, researcher, or venue has been cited by later work, used as a proxy for scholarly influence and measured through a family of metrics that range from raw, unweighted citation counts to field-normalized indicators designed to correct for citation-rate differences across disciplines.
FORCE11 (Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship)
FORCE11 (Future of Research Communications and e-Scholarship) is a global, member-driven nonprofit community of scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers, and research funders working to make scholarly communication more open, transparent, and reusable across every stage of the research lifecycle -- not only the final journal article. An initiative qualifies as FORCE11's work if it was developed through one of its working groups or endorsed community declarations (for example the FAIR Guiding Principles, the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, the Software Citation Principles, or the Resource Identification Initiative behind RRIDs) and carries FORCE11's name as convener or co-convener, as opposed to work that merely cites or is philosophically aligned with FORCE11's broader open-scholarship goals without having gone through its community process.
Self-Citation Rate
The self-citation rate is the proportion of an entity's total citations that point back to its own prior output. At the author level, it is the share of citations to a researcher's work that were made by that same researcher (in a later paper, citing an earlier one). At the journal level, it is the share of citations counted toward a journal's metrics (most visibly its Journal Impact Factor in Journal Citation Reports, or its CiteScore in Scopus) that come from articles published in that same journal. In both cases the rate is a simple ratio: self-citations divided by total citations received, usually expressed as a percentage over a defined citation window (JCR uses the same two- and five-year windows it uses for the Journal Impact Factor itself). A nonzero self-citation rate is normal and expected — researchers build on their own prior work, and journals publish follow-on articles in an ongoing research area. The metric becomes a research-integrity concern only when the rate is unusually high relative to field and venue norms, which is treated as a signal of possible citation manipulation rather than of an intrinsic quality problem.
Google Scholar Metrics
Google Scholar Metrics is a free tool built into Google Scholar that ranks publication venues -- journals, conference proceedings, and some preprint repositories -- by an automatically-computed h5-index, rather than ranking individual authors. A source counts as covered by Google Scholar Metrics only once it clears fixed inclusion thresholds (at minimum roughly 100 articles published within the most recent five complete calendar years, with at least some citations to those articles); anything below that threshold simply does not appear, regardless of quality. It is a venue-level ranking feature, not an author-level metric -- it should never be confused with an individual researcher's h-index or i10-index, which Google Scholar computes separately inside a personal Google Scholar Citations profile.
Altmetric Explorer
Altmetric Explorer (formally 'Altmetric Explorer for Institutions,' with a separate 'Explorer for Publishers' edition) is Altmetric's paid, subscription-only dashboard application: a searchable, filterable web tool that lets a research office, library, or communications team browse, analyze, benchmark, and report on the online attention -- news coverage, policy-document citations, social media mentions, blog posts, Wikipedia references, and other sources -- that Altmetric has captured for research outputs. A product/page qualifies as Altmetric Explorer, rather than the free <a href='/dictionary/term/altmetric-attention-score'>Altmetric Attention Score</a> badge or browser bookmarklet, specifically because it is the paid, institution-wide reporting and analysis layer built on top of Altmetric's underlying attention data and Attention Score -- not the score itself. The Attention Score and the free bookmarklet/journal-embedded badge are available to view for any individual research output without a subscription; Explorer, by contrast, only exists as a licensed institutional (or publisher) account with login-gated search, department/author-level views, benchmarking, and export/reporting functionality layered on top of that same underlying dataset.
PlumX Metrics
A proprietary altmetrics product, owned and operated by Elsevier (built on the Plum Analytics platform, acquired by Elsevier in February 2017), that qualifies as PlumX Metrics data specifically when it reports engagement for a research output as five distinct, non-aggregated category counts -- Citations, Usage, Captures, Mentions, and Social Media -- rather than combining those signals into one overall composite score; the category structure itself, not just the presence of altmetrics-style tracking, is what distinguishes it from single-score competitors.
Altmetric Attention Score
A proprietary, automatically calculated weighted count -- produced by the company Altmetric (a Digital Science business) -- of the online attention a specific research output has received across tracked sources, where a mention counts toward the score only if it is captured by Altmetric's tracking and is attributable to a source type in its weighting model (news outlets, blogs, policy documents, Wikipedia, post-publication peer review platforms, X/social media, and others); it is a measure of the volume and reach of attention, not of scholarly quality or citation impact.
Perverse Incentives (in Research)
In research integrity, a perverse incentive is a feature of an evaluation, funding, or reward system that motivates behavior contrary to that system's stated goal. Research is organized around proxy metrics for quality — publication count, journal impact factor, citation counts, grant dollars secured — that are easier to measure than the underlying goals they stand in for (rigor, originality, real-world value). When careers, tenure, promotion, and funding decisions are tied tightly to these proxies, researchers face pressure to optimize the measurable proxy rather than the underlying goal, even when doing so degrades the research itself. A situation exhibits a perverse incentive when three conditions hold together: (1) a metric or reward is used as a stand-in for research quality, (2) career or funding consequences are attached to that metric, and (3) the metric can be increased through behavior that does not improve, or actively harms, the actual science.
Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
A journal is considered SSCI-indexed when Clarivate's independent, in-house editorial reviewers have evaluated and accepted it into the Social Sciences Citation Index — the social-sciences-scoped citation index within the Web of Science Core Collection — based on Clarivate's quality criteria (peer review, editorial rigor, timeliness, ethical publishing standards) and its own separate impact/citation-influence assessment. SSCI inclusion is evaluated independently of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI): a journal is not automatically SSCI-indexed just because it appears in one of those companion indexes, and indexing is not permanent — a journal can later be suspended or delisted if it stops meeting Clarivate's criteria.
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is an independent, community-curated online directory that indexes peer-reviewed open-access journals meeting its published inclusion criteria. A journal counts as "DOAJ-indexed" only once it has applied and DOAJ's editorial team has evaluated and accepted that application against DOAJ's own checkable standards for genuine open access, documented peer review, an identifiable editorial board, ISSN registration, licensing/copyright transparency, and public disclosure of any author-facing fees -- self-describing as open access, or being under DOAJ review, is not the same claim as being listed.
Good H-Index
A "good" h-index is not a fixed number: it is only interpretable relative to a researcher's specific field (citation density and publication norms vary widely by discipline) and career stage (h-index can only increase over time, so it partly measures career length), and even then should be used only as one input alongside qualitative review of the actual body of work, not as a standalone pass/fail threshold.
NSF Biosketch (SciENcv)
The Biographical Sketch that a proposer submits for NSF senior/key personnel counts as an NSF Biosketch (SciENcv) only when it is generated inside SciENcv using NSF's Biographical Sketch module and follows the NSPM-33 Common Form structure (Identifying Information, Organization and Location, Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, Products, Certification) -- a hand-typed PDF built outside SciENcv is no longer an accepted substitute for proposals subject to the current PAPPG.
Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is Clarivate's annual analytics database and publication reporting citation-based metrics — including the Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Indicator, Eigenfactor Score, Article Influence Score, and quartile (Q1-Q4) category rankings — for journals in the Web of Science Core Collection. A figure counts as "the JCR number" only when it is what Clarivate itself calculates and publishes in a specific annual release (e.g. JCR 2026), sourced from Web of Science citation data — not a similar-looking figure mirrored by a third-party site or a metric from a different database such as Scopus.
Google Scholar API
Google, as a matter of long-standing, publicly stated policy, does not operate an official, sanctioned application programming interface for Google Scholar -- there is no documented endpoint, no API key registration process, and no rate-limited free or paid tier comparable to those offered by Crossref, ORCID, Scopus, or OpenAlex. "Google Scholar API" as a search term almost always refers to one of two distinct things instead: (1) a third-party commercial scraping service (e.g. SerpApi, Apify, Oxylabs) that queries Google Scholar's public web pages on a customer's behalf and returns the result as structured JSON, or (2) an open-source scraping library (e.g. the Python package "scholarly") that automates a browser or HTTP session against the same public pages with no official sanction from Google. Both categories work by parsing Google Scholar's HTML search-results and profile pages, not by calling an endpoint Google built or documents for that purpose, and both are constrained by Google Scholar's robots.txt disallow rules and general Google Terms of Service language prohibiting automated querying without prior permission.
i10-index
A Google Scholar-specific author metric equal to the count of a researcher's publications that have each individually accumulated at least 10 citations, computed automatically from the citation data attached to a Google Scholar Citations profile.
Web of Science
Web of Science is Clarivate’s citation-indexing and research-discovery platform, not a single index in its own right. A publication counts as covered by Web of Science only once it has been evaluated and accepted into at least one of the platform’s underlying citation indices — most often the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, or Arts & Humanities Citation Index within the Web of Science Core Collection, or one of the platform’s regional indices — each governed by its own independent Clarivate selection criteria; being published, or indexed elsewhere such as in Scopus, does not automatically make a title searchable on Web of Science.
Scopus
Scopus is Elsevier's proprietary, subscription-based abstract-and-citation database of peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, books, and book chapters, launched in November 2004. A title is "in Scopus" only once Elsevier's Content Selection and Advisory Board has evaluated and accepted it against criteria including peer-review policy, publication ethics, and editorial diversity — inclusion is an ongoing editorial decision, not automatic, and previously indexed titles can later be suspended or discontinued if they stop meeting those criteria.
Google Scholar Citations profile
A self-created, self-curated author page on scholar.google.com that displays a researcher's publications alongside auto-updating citation count, h-index, and i10-index figures computed from Google Scholar's own web index, distinct from database-issued author records such as a Scopus Author ID or an ORCID iD.
Science Citation Index (SCI/SCIE)
A journal is considered SCI/SCIE-indexed when it has been formally evaluated and accepted by Clarivate into the Science Citation Index Expanded — the sciences-scoped citation index within the Web of Science Core Collection — based on Clarivate's editorial quality criteria (peer review, editorial rigor, ethical publishing standards) and impact criteria (citation influence). Indexing is not permanent: a journal can be added, and can later be suspended or delisted, if it stops meeting those criteria.
NISO Alternative Assessment Metrics (Altmetrics) Initiative
A NISO-run standards-development initiative (2013–2016), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, whose three working groups on (A) definitions and use cases, (B) output types and persistent identifiers, and (C) data quality produced NISO RP-25-2016, “Outputs of the NISO Alternative Assessment Metrics Project” (September 2016) — the first community-vetted recommended practice covering altmetrics terminology, use cases, non-traditional output types, and provider transparency (via the associated Altmetrics Data Quality Code of Conduct). Something counts as an output of this initiative if it was produced by one of its three working groups and published in or alongside RP-25-2016. It names the specific NISO project and its documented deliverables — not the general altmetrics concept those deliverables define, and not any single vendor's proprietary scoring methodology, which the initiative explicitly did not attempt to standardize.
Metascience
The empirical, quantitative study of science itself: applying research methods to research methods, reporting practices, evaluation systems, and incentive structures, in order to describe how research is actually conducted and to test interventions that make it more reliable and efficient. Something counts as metascience when its object of study is the research process across a field — study design, statistical power, reporting completeness, peer review, replication rates, or how funding and career incentives shape researcher behavior — rather than a first-order scientific question within a specific discipline. Also called meta-research or, informally, "the science of science."
Re-evaluation cycle
A scheduled, periodic review by a research-assessment system of its own indicators, criteria and processes to identify drift, unintended consequences and opportunities for reform.
Lifetime contribution lens
An assessment approach that evaluates a researcher's contributions across their whole career, rather than within a fixed recent window, especially for senior recognition such as fellowships, honours and emeritus appointments.
Career diversity
Recognition in research assessment of diverse career paths, trajectories and mobility patterns, including industry experience, intersectoral mobility, career breaks, part-time work and non-linear progression.
Process diversity (in assessment)
Recognition in research assessment of the diverse research processes researchers contribute to, including teaching, mentoring, peer review, leadership, software engineering, data curation, public engagement and policy work.
Output diversification
The recognition in research assessment of a wide range of research outputs beyond journal articles, including datasets, software, protocols, registered reports, policy briefs, creative works and practitioner publications.
Peer review (in assessment)
The use of expert qualitative judgement by relevant peers to evaluate research outputs, researchers, proposals or environments, distinct from peer review of journal manuscripts.
Quantitative-qualitative balance
The principle in responsible assessment that quantitative indicators should support, not supplant, qualitative expert judgement and that both forms of evidence should be combined transparently.
Responsible metrics
An approach to using quantitative indicators in research assessment that emphasises robustness, humility, transparency, diversity and reflexivity, as articulated in the 2015 Metric Tide report.
Twitter mentions (concept)
An altmetric signal counting public posts on Twitter (rebranded to X in 2023) that include a link or identifier referring to a specific research output.
Mendeley readership
An altmetric signal derived from the count of users who have added a research article to their personal library in the Mendeley reference manager.
Relative Citation Ratio (RCR, NIH)
An article-level field-normalised citation metric developed by the US National Institutes of Health, expressing an article's citations per year relative to the median in the article's co-citation network, with a value of 1.0 corresponding to NIH-funded median performance.
Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)
An article-level citation indicator, published by Elsevier (SciVal/Scopus), that normalises an article's citation count against the average for outputs of the same publication year, document type and subject field, with 1.0 representing the world average.
Article-level metrics
Indicators reported at the level of an individual article rather than the journal in which it was published, typically including citations, views, downloads, saves and altmetric signals.
Altmetrics
A family of indicators that capture attention to and engagement with research outputs across non-traditional sources such as social media, news outlets, policy documents, blogs, Wikipedia and reference managers.
h-index
A researcher-level metric proposed by Jorge Hirsch in 2005, defined as the largest number h such that the researcher has published h papers each cited at least h times.
CiteScore
A journal-level metric published by Elsevier (Scopus) since 2016 that measures the average number of citations received in a given year by documents published in that journal during the previous four years.
Journal Impact Factor (JIF)
An annual journal-level metric, published by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports, equal to the average number of citations in a given year to articles published in that journal during the preceding two years.
Personal statement (research assessment)
A short narrative section in a researcher CV, grant application or assessment dossier in which the researcher explains, in their own voice, the context, motivation and significance of their work and contributions.
Biosketch (NIH-style)
The structured biographical document every senior/key person on an NIH grant application must submit. For due dates on or after January 25, 2026, NIH requires it in a new two-part NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form (Professional Preparation, Appointments and Positions, Products) plus a separate NIH Biosketch Supplement (Personal Statement, Honors, Contributions to Science) -- both prepared in SciENcv -- replacing the narrative five-page Section A-D format used since 2015.
R4RI mandate (UKRI 2024)
The UK Research and Innovation policy, fully effective in 2024, requiring applicants and reviewers in most UKRI funding opportunities to use the R4RI-derived narrative CV ('Resume for Research and Innovation') instead of traditional academic CVs.
R4RI (Resume for Researchers / Royal Society narrative CV)
A narrative-style CV template originally developed by the Royal Society in 2019 that captures a researcher's contributions across four modules rather than relying on a list of publications and metrics.
REF 2029
The next planned cycle of the UK Research Excellence Framework, currently scheduled with a submission deadline in 2028 and results in 2029, with substantial design changes following the Future Research Assessment Programme.
REF 2021
The 2021 cycle of the UK Research Excellence Framework, whose results were published in May 2022, assessing research produced between 2014 and 2020.
REF impact case study
A structured narrative submission to the REF describing how research from a UK institution has produced demonstrable effects, change or benefit beyond academia.
REF (Research Excellence Framework, UK)
The UK's national exercise for assessing the quality of research in higher education institutions, used to inform the selective allocation of quality-related (QR) research funding.
Metric Tide Review
The 2022-2023 re-examination of the original Metric Tide report, also chaired by James Wilsdon for Research England, which reviewed how responsible-metrics principles had been implemented since 2015.
Metric Tide Report
The 2015 independent review of the role of metrics in UK research assessment, commissioned by HEFCE and chaired by James Wilsdon, which introduced the concept of 'responsible metrics'.
Leiden Manifesto
A 2015 set of ten principles for the responsible use of quantitative indicators in research evaluation, authored by Hicks, Wouters, Waltman, de Rijcke and Rafols.
Hong Kong Principles for Assessing Researchers
A set of five principles published in 2020 to guide the assessment of researchers in ways that reward research integrity and trustworthy practice rather than productivity alone.
CoARA Agreement
The 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment that sets out ten commitments members of CoARA undertake to implement in their evaluation policies and practices.
CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment)
A multi-stakeholder coalition launched in 2022 to coordinate the reform of research assessment across institutions, funders and learned societies, primarily in Europe but with global membership.
DORA signatory
An individual or organisation that has formally endorsed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment by registering its commitment on the DORA website.
DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment)
A 2012 declaration urging that research assessment stop relying on journal-based metrics, particularly the Journal Impact Factor, as proxies for the quality of individual research outputs or researchers.
