Performance Measurements Influence on Medical Scientists’ Career Strategies

The most infamous author-level performance indicator in academia is the h-index. Hirsch (2005) created it to measure both the productivity and the citation impact of a researcher's scholarly publications. The index quickly became one of the most popular indicators among researchers and policymakers since it is a relatively simple measure of research performance. However, a simple measure cannot incorporate the entire complexity of scholarly communication, or of the profile of an academic career.

This study differs previous studies examining and discussing the h-index, criticizing its merits, and/or suggesting alternative measures. We accept the existence, and use of the h-index, but are critical towards it being used as an impact indicator on its own. The study focuses on how individual researchers can in principle strategically optimize their own h-index, and on the strategies used by such “high h-index researchers”.

The study uses publication data about 75 medical researchers to identify the researchers as either high h-index researchers, or low h-index researchers and to select relevant interviewees. The interviews focus on the researchers' career and their respective publication strategies (if any). Indications are that the high h-index researchers reflect on their performance measures, and work strategically with increasing their own performance in accordance with such measures, while the low h-index researchers are less conscious about such measures. Our study describes the differences between the two groups and discusses the implications of our findings.