Ranking scientists

In this age of big data and high social and professional mobility, ranking has become one of the central issues in social life and information technologies. Ranking algorithms, including the famed Google PageRank [1–3], enable automated selection of relevant information and the functioning of search engines. Ranking is an obligatory task of various selection and evaluation boards. At the same time, ranking algorithms are powerful tools for control and manipulation of economies and society, allowing quick redirection of web traffic through small biased updates, and restriction of public access to undesired information and the products and services of economic and political rivals. The biased ranking of scientists can be particularly harmful, substituting misleading citation-based targets for the real aims of scientific research: strong results. One of the consequences of this substitution—a marked reshaping of research behaviors—has already been noticed by sociologists [4].