Quantifying scientific impact: networks, measures, insights?

Scientometrics, and quantitative studies of science in general, attract significant attention both from researchers and stakeholders. Importantly, they already impact the evaluation of researchers and the funding of proposals. Thanks to the availability of data from bibliographic databases, it has become particularly easy to construct and analyse collaboration and citation networks, develop novel measures of scientific impact, or even apply predictive analytics techniques to predict the future career of young scientists. Which quantitative measures convey the most information? What insighsts can we gain from these measures? Do, or will, such measures influence how we conduct science, how we collaborate or whom we cite? Which issues arise in the collection, preprocessing and analysis of bibliographic data? And should we quantify and/or predict scientific impact altogether?

In this workshop, we address novel research directions in this area, in particular network-based approaches for the quantitative evaluation of science. Participation is on an invitation-only basis and is restricted to 20 participants. It is the expressed goal of the organizers to bring together stakeholders dealing with the quantitative evaluation of science on a daily basis and scientists investigating novel ways to quantitatively study the structure and dynamics of scientific progress. As such, the list of participants includes prominent researchers in scientometrics from different disciplines, representatives of bibliometric data providers as well as key players in the provision of academic evaluation and ranking services.

The workshop took place from February 12-13 2015 at ETH Zürich at Villa Hatt, an exclusive seminar location offering beautiful views of Zurich, the lake and the mountains.