Bibliometrics: use and abuse in the humanities

The symposium Bibliometrics: Use and Abuse in the Review of Research Performance, held in Stockholm, 23–25 May 2013, fell within the context of an initiative to put an end to the misuse of JIF (journal impact factors), embodied in the San Francisco DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) [1] instigated in December 2012 at the meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. Interestingly, just before the start of the Symposium, reactions to DORA appeared in leading journals and news blogs, such as Nature News Blog [2], an editorial in Science [3], an editorial on research assessment in The EMBO Journal [4], an editorial in Molecular Biology of the Cell [5] and an editorial in eLIFE [6], to name but a few. In a sense, DORA can be seen as a kind of culmination of decades‐long discussions on bibliometrics, their use and abuse. Debates on the JIF also have a history of discussions as evidenced in leading journals as mentioned above, discussions pro and contra the JIF often mirroring divergent views (cf. e.g. [7]). In principle, the reactions to DORA can be said to support the main intent of the declaration, that is to address the over‐reliance on JIFs in research assessment, as well as providing the basis for a change in the current system of research assessment prevalent in the so‐called hard sciences. It is of course impossible to go into the different nuances that the above‐mentioned reactions to DORA stress. However, it should be noted that up to a certain point, they present a range of opinions and that they focus on different points of the declaration. One example is the view of the Nature [2], which has not signed DORA, and in which Philip Campbell, Editor‐in‐Chief of Nature, stresses that the group’s journals had in the past published many critical views on the excessive use of JIFs. He also states the opinion that some statements in DORA are too sweeping, and thus does not merit the full support of DORA. Although DORA can be seen as a move in the right direction, for if nothing else it has in a strong way initiated once again the big question of how to assess research performance, in order to assess quality and not peripheral indicators, open questions still remain. Would reducing the ‘impact’ of JIFs in favour of article‐level ones be a true improvement in assessing article quality? Or, should the ultimate goal be evaluating research papers on the basis of their scientific merit? The ongoing discussions will, if nothing else, hopefully lay the foundations for a