How to measure academic impact.

Good research informs action, gathers evidence for theories and/or contributes to developing knowledge in a field of study. Research impact is the extent to which research has contributed both to academia and beyond to influence broader society, culture, our environment and the economy. Widespread research dissemination is a distinct but vital measure to generate impact, described in a separate article in this series [1]. Measurement of impact is vital across the research ecosystem including for funders, institutions and for individual researchers. Impact metrics are used in multiple ways: 1) benchmark researchers and institutions; 2) demonstrate productivity; 3) guide promotion; 4) quantify return on investment for funders; and 5) leverage additional funding for researchers. No single measure, however, exists to accurately represent the impact of a researcher or an individual article [2]. This issue has recently been highlighted by the removal of the ResearchGate (ResearchGate GmbH, Berlin, Germany) ‘RG score’ for individual researchers from their platform [3]; stating that this score does not meet all key criteria for an impact metric of being intuitive, transparent, robust and relevant. There remains uncertainty regarding how researchers can assess the impact of their work. The aim of this article is to outline the strengths and weaknesses of existing metrics at the individual, article, journal and institutional level to quantify or qualify academic impact. We do not suggest a single ‘unifying’ metric, but instead, that a holistic approach should be taken, drawing together multiple parameters to measure academic impact