A measure for the impact of research

Abstract

The last few years have seen the proliferation of measures that quantify the scientific output of researches. Yet, these measures focus on productivity, thus fostering the "publish or perish" paradigm. This article proposes a measure that aims at quantifying the impact of research de-emphasizing productivity, thus providing scientists an alternative, conceivably fairer, evaluation of their work. Emphasis is placed on the scientist rather than on quantities that can grow unbounded. The measure, defined initially for manuscripts, is then extended to researchers and institutions.