Individual research performance: A proposal for comparing apples to oranges

The evaluation of performance at the individual level is of fundamental importance in informing management decisions. The literature provides various indicators and types of measures, however a problem that is still unresolved and little addressed is how to compare the performance of researchers working in different fields (apples to oranges). In this work we propose a solution, testing various scaling factors for the distributions of research productivity in 174 scientific fields. The analysis is based on the observation of scientific production by all Italian university researchers active in the hard sciences over the period 2004–2008, as indexed by the Web of Science. The most effective scaling factor is the average of the productivity distribution of researchers with productivity above zero.

► We face the problem of comparing performance of researchers from different fields. ► We propose a performance indicator, named Fractional Scientific Strength, FSS. ► We measure the 2004–2008 FSS of Italian academics, classified in 174 fields. ► We test the effectiveness of four FSS scaling factors. ► The most effective is the productivity average of productive researchers.