20%
B) Impact & Excellence

The Impact & Excellence indicator evaluates how strongly an entity’s research influences the global scholarly ecosystem through citations, academic visibility, recognition, and long-term scholarly contribution.

This indicator examines not only how often research is cited, but also the quality, consistency, velocity, and sustainability of that influence across time and disciplines. It helps identify researchers, institutions, publishers, funders, and scholarly sources whose research contributes significantly to scientific advancement and global academic knowledge.

Within the UNIRANKS Open Index framework, this indicator helps answer an essential question:

How influential, recognized, and academically impactful is this entity within the global research ecosystem?

Research influence is one of the strongest indicators of scholarly relevance and academic excellence. High-impact research helps shape scientific progress, supports innovation, influences future studies, and contributes to global knowledge development.

However, citation influence should not be measured using total citation numbers alone. Some entities may generate a few highly cited works, while others maintain long-term consistent influence across thousands of publications.

This is why the Impact & Excellence indicator combines multiple dimensions of scholarly influence, including citation growth, normalized impact, consistency, recent performance, and long-term academic recognition.

This creates a more balanced and reliable understanding of real research excellence.

Weight: 3%

Overall citation influence strength

The Total Citations Score evaluates the overall citation influence generated by an entity across all indexed scholarly works within the Open Index ecosystem.

This indicator measures how often an entity’s research has been cited by the global academic community, reflecting its visibility, recognition, and influence on future scholarly work.

It considers:

• Total accumulated citations
• Long-term scholarly influence
• Academic visibility across disciplines
• Research recognition by other scholars
• Overall contribution to scientific advancement

The score is normalized to allow fair comparison across entities and research categories.

Weight: 3%

Citation growth and acceleration performance

The Citation Velocity Score measures how quickly an entity’s citations are growing over time.

Rather than focusing only on historical citation totals, this indicator evaluates research momentum and the speed at which scholarly influence is increasing within the academic ecosystem.

It helps identify entities experiencing strong recent academic attention and rapidly growing research relevance.

It considers:

• Citation growth trends
• Recent acceleration in citation activity
• Momentum of scholarly influence
• Emerging research visibility
• Short-term influence expansion

This indicator helps distinguish actively growing influence from static historical performance.

Weight: 3%

Recent scholarly influence and relevance

This indicator evaluates citation performance generated during the most recent five-year period.

It focuses on current research relevance and the ability of an entity to maintain active scholarly impact within modern academic discussions.

It considers:

• Citations received during the last five years
• Current academic relevance
• Ongoing influence in recent literature
• Sustainability of research impact
• Recent scholarly contribution strength

This helps identify entities that remain actively influential in contemporary research ecosystems.

Weight: 2%

Typical citation impact across publications

The Median Citations per Work Score evaluates the typical citation performance of an entity’s scholarly outputs.

Unlike average citation measures, the median approach reduces the distortion caused by a small number of extremely highly cited publications.

It considers:

• Median citation performance
• Citation consistency across outputs
• Typical research influence level
• Balanced scholarly performance
• Distribution of citation impact

This creates a more stable understanding of overall publication quality and influence.

Weight: 3%

Field-normalized scholarly influence

The OI Normalized Impact indicator evaluates citation influence relative to disciplinary expectations and publication context.

Different research fields naturally generate different citation patterns. This indicator normalizes citation performance to allow fair comparison between entities operating across different disciplines and research ecosystems.

It considers:

• Citation impact relative to field averages
• Cross-disciplinary normalization
• Publication context
• Research influence consistency
• Comparative academic excellence

This enables more equitable benchmarking across diverse scholarly domains.

Weight: 2%

Strength of highest-impact research outputs

The Top Cited Work Score measures the influence generated by an entity’s most highly cited scholarly works.

This indicator highlights exceptional publications that achieved outstanding visibility and influence within the academic community.

It considers:

• Highest-performing publications
• Exceptional citation achievements
• Landmark or breakthrough research
• Influence of top scholarly outputs
• Visibility of elite research contributions

This helps identify entities capable of producing globally influential research works.

Weight: 2%

Industry-related scholarly influence

The Citation Industry Score evaluates how strongly an entity’s research contributes to industry-connected knowledge, applied research, and practical innovation ecosystems.

This indicator focuses on research influence extending beyond traditional academic environments into industry and applied sectors.

It considers:

• Industry-related citation activity
• Applied research visibility
• Research relevance to innovation ecosystems
• Influence on industry-connected studies
• Contribution to practical knowledge development

This helps recognize entities contributing to both academic and real-world impact.

Weight: 2%

Sustained scholarly recognition and consistency

The H-index Strength Score evaluates the balance between research productivity and citation impact through long-term scholarly performance.

This indicator reflects the ability of an entity to consistently produce influential research over time rather than relying on isolated high-impact publications.

It considers:

• Long-term citation consistency
• Sustained academic recognition
• Balance between output and influence
• Stability of scholarly contribution
• Research impact continuity

This helps identify entities with durable and consistently recognized academic influence.

The UNIRANKS Open Index methodology is built around multiple interconnected indicators designed to evaluate research ecosystems from different perspectives, including scholarly impact, openness, collaboration, trust, growth, societal contribution, and ecosystem alignment.

Each indicator explores a unique dimension of research performance to provide a broader and more balanced understanding of global scholarly activity beyond traditional ranking models.

A) Core Output & Scale: 15%

Measuring the Foundation of Research Activity

Evaluate scholarly production volume, publication growth, productivity performance, and research scale across the global academic ecosystem.

Explore Core Output & Scale →

B) Impact & Excellence: 20%

Understanding Scholarly Influence and Research Recognition

Analyze citation impact, academic influence, research excellence, and the global visibility of scholarly contributions.

Explore Impact & Excellence →

C) Quality, Trust & Integrity: 15%

Evaluating Reliability and Research Credibility

Measure research trustworthiness through integrity indicators, publication quality signals, indexing standards, and scholarly reliability metrics.

Explore Quality, Trust & Integrity →

D) Open Science & Accessibility: 10%

Measuring Openness and Knowledge Accessibility

Assess open access availability, public research visibility, accessibility practices, and participation in open scholarly ecosystems.

Explore Open Science & Accessibility →

E) Collaboration & Global Reach: 15%

Mapping Research Connectivity Across Borders

Evaluate international collaboration, institutional partnerships, co-authorship networks, and global scholarly engagement.

Explore Collaboration & Global Reach →

F) Portfolio Strength & Momentum: 10%

Analyzing Research Diversity and Development Trends

Measure the breadth, sustainability, specialization, and evolving momentum of scholarly research portfolios over time.

Explore Portfolio Strength & Momentum →

G) Knowledge Transfer & Societal Influence: 10%

Measuring Research Contribution Beyond Academia

Evaluate how research supports innovation, policy development, industry engagement, education, healthcare, sustainability, and societal advancement.

Explore Knowledge Transfer & Societal Influence →

H) OI Alignment: 05%

Measuring Ecosystem Compatibility and Open Index Readiness

Assess how effectively entities align with the UNIRANKS Open Index framework, structured scholarly ecosystems, openness standards, and research connectivity models.

Explore OI Alignment →

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