Citation analysis cannot legitimate the strategic selection of excellence

Tobias Opthof 1,2 & Loet Leydesdorff 3 Abstract In reaction to a previous critique (Opthof & Leydesdorff, 2010), the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden proposed to change their old “crown” indicator in citation analysis into a new one. Waltman et al. (2011a) argue that this change does not affect rankings at various aggregated levels. However, CWTS data is not publicly available for testing and criticism. In this correspondence, we use previously published data of Van Raan (2006) to address the pivotal issue of how the results of citation analysis correlate with the results of peer review. A quality parameter based on peer review was neither significantly correlated with the two parameters developed by the CWTS in the past (CPP/JCSm or CPP/FCSm) nor with the more recently proposed hindex (Hirsch, 2005). Given the high correlations between the old and new “crown” indicators, one can expect that the lack of correlation with the peer-review based quality indicator applies equally to the newly developed ones.