BMJ  2006;332:1214-1215 (20 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7551.1214-c

Letter

How should we rate research?

Counting number of publications may be best research performance measure

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The debate about how to replace the UK research assessment exercise is confused.¹ For example, the numbers of publications and citations are research output measures while research council funding and numbers of academic and research staff are input measures.

Non-transparency and lack of objectivity dog the research assessment exercise through the unmeasurable role of subjective opinion. The same criticism applies to research council decisions. Therefore, it would be a mistake for future funding systems to try to replicate the results of the current exercise: we can do better.

A system of research evaluation based on fundamental output metrics such as publications or citations, or both, is (like any simple measure) inevitably incomplete and imperfect, but it has the great advantage that these deficiencies are not concealed. A league table of English and Scottish university publications and citations accumulated in the ISI Web of Science for 2000-4 gives plausible . . . [Full text of this article]

bruce.charlton@ncl.ac.uk, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

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