Citation:
Surya, M. D'Este, P. Neely, A. Citation Counts: Are They Good Predictors of RAE
Scores? A bibliometric analysis of RAE 2001.
Abstract:
The question of how best to assess research performance is clearly of great
concern. In December 2007, HEFCE launched a national consultation on the future
of Research Assessment, proposing that a Research Excellence Framework replaces
the current Research Assessment Exercise. Fundamentally the Research Excellence
Framework involves a shift to metrics. Views on the effectiveness of metrics for
assessing research are mixed, so in this report we seek empirically to explore
the question of whether metrics based on citation counts are strongly correlated
with peer review assessments of research quality. We use data from RAE2001,
covering all Departments and all Universities in the UK.