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A ranking of universities should account for differences in their disciplinary specialization

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Abstract

A bibliometric analysis of the 50 most frequently publishing Spanish universities shows large differences in the publication activity and citation impact among research disciplines within an institution. Gini Index is a useful measure of an institution’s disciplinary specialization and can roughly categorize universities in terms of general versus specialized. A study of the Spanish academic system reveals that assessment of a university’s research performance must take into account the disciplinary breadth of its publication activity and citation impact. It proposes the use of graphs showing not only a university’s article production and citation impact, but also its disciplinary specialization. Such graphs constitute both a warning and a remedy against one-dimensional approaches to the assessment of institutional research performance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SCImago Unit, IPP, CCHS, CSIC, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain

    Carmen López-Illescas & Félix de Moya-Anegón

  2. Elsevier, Radarweg 29, 1043 NX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Henk F. Moed

Authors
  1. Carmen López-Illescas
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  2. Félix de Moya-Anegón
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  3. Henk F. Moed
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Correspondence to Carmen López-Illescas.

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López-Illescas, C., de Moya-Anegón, F. & Moed, H.F. A ranking of universities should account for differences in their disciplinary specialization. Scientometrics 88, 563–574 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-011-0398-6

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