Parikalpana: KIIT Journal of Management [Vol. 10.2; 2014] Editorial

Measuring Research-strength of an Institute

Rabi Narayan Subudhi

Professor, KIIT University Bhubaneswar, India

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Introduction:

Like the available measures on ‘relative research-strength’ of any individual researcher or of

any journal (such as ‘impact-factor’), research community also look with interest for some ‘relative

score/ position’ of Universities, Institutes and research organizations. This is computed by taking

‘total research publications of the institute/ university’ into consideration. There are many initiatives/

agencies doing this job. We shall present here the scores of ‘Research-Gate’ and the relative position

of the leading institutes in India and Asia.

The research-network ResearchGate [https://www.researchgate.net] is fast catching up the

attention of most of the researchers of the world, today. It is the ‘the social networking site for

scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions and find collaborators’, that was

co-founded by Ijad Madisch1 in 2008. The company is now based in Berlin and has offices in

Cambridge. This startup was developed as a communication and crowd sourcing platform by which

scientists can share and publish their research. “About 56 percent of research papers published in

2013 included an author that is on ResearchGate. From 2008 to 2011, 1.4 million papers were added

to the profiles of scientists on ResearchGate. Now, this network is seeing 1.4 million papers added

each month, with 27 million papers uploaded in total. And much of the collaborative power is in

sharing the raw data between scientists. Every two days, 1,300 data sets are uploaded. The

engagement is just growing exponentially.”

Research Scores & Impact points:

ResearchGate has its own formula/ algorithm of calculating RG-Score2, Impact-points,

Citations etc. Though the formula or the algorithm can always be debated, but when we want to

compare and see the relative position of any institute or University, the total RG-score (of all its

members) can be taken as a good measure. Of course one can argue and question, whether the

Institute/ University has actually been represented correctly in ResearchGate! Many good

researchers might not have opted (joined), so far, for this network. However, now there are

thousands of Institution/ University, listed/ featured in ResearchGate. We shall have a look at the

relative position of the ‘world-leaders’, accepting the RG-score as ‘fairly acceptable’ for

comparison.

Present Comparative Status:

If we look at the scores, as discussed above, we can find the following statistics on those

Institutes/ Universities, who are relatively more ‘active’ and ‘visible’ in research.

As on Dt.25.02.2014, we find the number of leading Institutes/ Universities of the world, as

per the latest RG-Score:

Number of Institutes/ Universities with total RG score >15000= 267

Number of Institutes/ Universities with total RG score >10,000 = 428

Number of Institutes/ Universities with total RG score >5000 = 793

Number of Institutes/ Universities with total RG score >1000 = 2630

As we find from the above statistics, hardly 800 Institution/ Universities are there having

scores above 5000. Yes, of course it is actually NOT the actual final/ total score of that Institution/

University (as many scholars might not have uploaded their work).

When we look at the leaders list (as on 25.02.2014), we can have it separately as per ‘Total

RG Score’ or ‘Total Impact points’, as:

(a): Top-10 Institutes, on Total Impact points [along with respective scores, as on Dt.25.2.14]

1.University of Washington Seattle 357,271.34

2.University of California, San Francisco 301,491.34

3.National Institutes of Health 295,197.56

4.Harvard Medical School 291,530.00

5.Stanford University 283,821.38

6.Johns Hopkins University 270,565.62

7.University of Toronto 252,072.77

8.University of California, Los Angeles 239,563.53

9.University of Michigan 238,110.48

10.University of Wisconsin, Madison 217,656.78

(b): Top-10 Institutes, on Total RG Score:[along with respective scores, as on Dt.25.2.14]

1.Chinese Academy of Sciences 92,192.73

2.University of São Paulo 83,630.03

3.National Research Council 74,289.07

4.French National Centre for Scientific Re... 73,175.98

5.University of Michigan 72,147.95

6.Russian Academy of Sciences 71,792.26

7.Karolinska Institutet 64,030.35

8.University of Washington Seattle 60,097.24

9.National Institutes of Health 60,082.38

10.University College London 58,759.75

It is interesting to note the wide variations in scores, even among the leading Institutes. CAS

Beijing now has a score over 92000, while the score of the 5th

ranker is almost one-fourth of it.

Top 5 Institutes, by total RG score in Asia & India

When this author looked at the growth in research, (based on total RG-Score from

ResearchGate), there is no change in top-five rank list, during last three months’ observation period.

Following tables give the respective scores and the growth rates:

Sr. Top Asian Institutes by RG Score 25.2.2014 17.03.2014 28.4.2014 Growth%

1 Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 92,192.73 95,906.94 106,008.21 14.99

2 The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 31,182.13 31,837.26 34,026.47 9.12

3 Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 29,534.55 29,932.24 31,330.09 6.08

4 Kyoto University, Kyoto 27,309.17 28,019.79 30,220.12 10.66

5 Hebrew University of Jerusalem 23,773.03 24,189.78 25,783.52 8.46

Sr. Top Indian Institutes by RG Score 25.2.2014 17.3.2014 28.4.2014 Growth%

1 Indian Institute of Science Bangalore 9,002.93 9,428.91 10,290.17 14.30

2 BARC, Mumbai 7,753.94 8,052.89 8,525.65 9.95

3 AIMS, New Delhi 7,409.13 7,662.98 8,260.22 11.49

4 ICMR, New Delhi 6,388.53 6,516.21 6,629.32 3.77

5 IIT Kharagpur 5,689.12 5,887.24 6,615.17 16.28

Concluding observations:

The objective of this statistical compilation is to create awareness, both among the

researchers and also the institutes, to understand the statistics carefully, before making any

judgment. Efforts should be made to encourage the researchers to take advantage of such research-

network initiatives, like RG. Once most/ majority of research work is covered in a network, then

only its scores/ statistics would be more trustworthy and comparable.

Issues/ questions which also come here, for further discussion and research, are:

- Are we giving ‘unjustifiably’ less importance (in terms of impact/ RG-score) to research-

publications in Social Sciences & Management (than Medical, Engineering or Pure Science)4

- Are we missing to cover some of bright-talents (and innovative ideas) not covered in reputed

journals;

- Are we indirectly facing a situation of ‘bad-money driving the good-money out of

circulation’ (good researchers silently opting out of this so called ‘publicity’ drive (?).

- Is there any significant variation (dispersion) among the scores calculated by similar (other)

research-networks, as given for the same Institution/ University? What can be done for

reduction of such variations?

- Can we not develop robust ‘formula/ algorithm’, whose validity & reliability (as tested in

research for a scale/ instrument) could be quite good?

Fellow researchers can have their own feelings and opinion. Experience from their own Institute

would be worth noting, for further analysis.

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Notes & References:

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1. Ijad Madisch holds an M.D. and Ph.D., and studied medicine and computer science in

Hannover at Harvard University. After several years in Boston, where he worked as a

radiology researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Ijad moved to Berlin and

founded ResearchGate in 2008.

2. Impact points are calculated based on which journals a researcher has been published in. This list

shows institutions based on the sum of the impact points of publications attributed to them. RG-

Score measures an individual researcher’s reputation, collectively, a group of colleagues’

scores can be seen as a reflection of an institution.

[https://www.researchgate.net/RGScore/FAQ/ ]

3. Editorial- (‘Research Statistics: Quantity also matters’), Parikalpana: KIIT Journal of

Management, Vol-10 (I), 2014);

4. https://www.researchgate.net

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[Note: This article is published by author, as Editorial, in Parikalpana: KIIT Journal of Management

and available online at: http://www.ksom.ac.in/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Parikalpana-

editorial-Vol-10-II.pdf ]