End-to-end evaluation of research organizations

Abramo and D’Angelo (2014, 2016) have recently looked at the issue of measuring performance and productivity of research organizations and the role that size-independent citation indicators play in this. Recently, Savithri and Prathap (2015) compared the research performance of leading higher education institutions in India and China using an end-to-end bibliometric performance analysis procedure with data from the 2014 release of the SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR). Six primary and secondary bibliometric indicators were used to summarize the chain of activity: input–output–excellence–outcome–productivity. Principal component analysis indicated that the primary indicators are orthogonal and represent sizedependent quantity and size-independent quality/productivity dimensions respectively. Using this insight two-dimensional maps can be used to visualize the results. It was clear that to arrive at meaningful summary statistical indicators for performance and productivity, both sizedependent and size-independent indicators play a key role and that the bibliometric core of the chain (measuring output or outcome) must be separated from the econometric part of the chain (the outcome or output to input ratios) .