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The ratio of top scientists to the academic staff as an indicator of the competitive strength of universities

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  • Abramo, Giovanni
  • D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea
  • Soldatenkova, Anastasiia

Abstract

The ability to attract and retain talented professors is a distinctive competence of world-class universities and a source of competitive advantage. The ratio of top scientists to academic staff could therefore be an indicator of the competitive strength of the universities. This work identifies the Italian top scientists in over 200 fields, by their research productivity. It then ranks the relative universities by the ratio of top scientists to overall faculty. Finally, it contrasts this list with the ranking list by average productivity of the overall faculty. The analysis is carried out at the field, discipline, and overall university levels. The paper also explores the secondary question of whether the ratio of top scientists to faculty is related to the size of the university.

Suggested Citation

  • Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Soldatenkova, Anastasiia, 2016. "The ratio of top scientists to the academic staff as an indicator of the competitive strength of universities," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 596-605.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:10:y:2016:i:2:p:596-605
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2016.04.013
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    6. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2012. "The dispersion of research performance within and between universities as a potential indicator of the competitive intensity in higher education systems," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 155-168.
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    11. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Andrea Ciriaco & Grilli, Leonardo, 2016. "From rankings to funnel plots: The question of accounting for uncertainty when assessing university research performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 854-862.
    12. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2012. "Revisiting the scaling of citations for research assessment," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 470-479.
    13. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2013. "The impact of unproductive and top researchers on overall university research performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 166-175.
    14. Linda Butler, 2007. "Assessing university research: A plea for a balanced approach," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(8), pages 565-574, October.
    15. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Rosati, Francesco, 2013. "The importance of accounting for the number of co-authors and their order when assessing research performance at the individual level in the life sciences," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 198-208.
    16. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Francesco Rosati, 2015. "The determinants of academic career advancement: Evidence from Italy," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(6), pages 761-774.
    17. Saisana, Michaela & d'Hombres, Béatrice & Saltelli, Andrea, 2011. "Rickety numbers: Volatility of university rankings and policy implications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 165-177, February.
    18. Lutz Bornmann & Johann Bauer, 2015. "Which of the world's institutions employ the most highly cited researchers? An analysis of the data from highlycited.com," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(10), pages 2146-2148, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Maxim Kotsemir & Sergey Shashnov, 2017. "Measuring, analysis and visualization of research capacity of university at the level of departments and staff members," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1659-1689, September.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & Aksnes, Dag W. & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2020. "Comparison of research performance of Italian and Norwegian professors and universities," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    3. Jinyang Dong & Jiamou Liu & Tiezhong Liu, 2021. "The impact of top scientists on the community development of basic research directed by government funding: evidence from program 973 in China," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8561-8579, October.
    4. Muhammad Sajid Qureshi & Ali Daud, 2021. "Fine-grained academic rankings: mapping affiliation of the influential researchers with the top ranked HEIs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8331-8361, October.

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