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Metrics for grant applications

How to find and use metrics to support a grant application

Journal metrics

Highly regarded journals can be evaluated according to either journal ranks or journal metrics.

Note:

  • Rankings are not comparable across different disciplines.
  • Not all funding bodies accept journal metrics. Check the relevant grant guidelines before you include journal metrics in your narrative.


Identify the percentage of papers published in top journals

Publications in top journal percentiles can demonstrate the percentage of outputs that have been published in highly regarded journals. View the percentage of your publications in top journal percentiles according to three journal metrics. The SNIP (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper) or SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) are field-normalised journal metrics and are therefore preferable.

  1. In SciVal, work in the Explore module.
  2. From the Entity list, select Researchers and groups.  Search for your name, or use Create/Import to create your researcher entity.
  3. In the Summary panel on the left, select Publication metrics. Adjust the date range to include the publications within those years you wish to view.
  4. Scroll to view the Publications in Top Journal Percentiles.
  5. Change the metric by which the percentile is defined, if you like. For example, to SciMago Journal Ranking (SJR).
Example statement:

I have published 10 papers between 2020-2024 that are listed in the Scopus database. Of those papers, 85% are published in the top 10% most cited journals according to the SciMago Journal Ranking (SciVal, Feb 2025).

Find journal rankings, quartiles and subject categories for your Web of Science publications

Quartiles allow you to compare the strengths of the journals to others in the same subject category. Articles published in top quartile journals may be a method for indicating quality of research.

  1. Go to Web of Science.
  2. Search for your publication.
  3. Click the hyperlinked journal name to see subject and ranking information (Note: some Arts and Humanities journals are not ranked).

Journal Citation Reports

  1. Go to Journal citation reports.
  2. Search for the journal name.
  3. Scroll down the journal page to Rank by Journal Impact Factor, where your journal will be ranked along with the other journals in a Web of Science Category.

Note: JCR rankings are updated each year. A journal may change rank or quartile.

Example statement:

Over 85% of my publications indexed in Web of Science are in Quartile 1 journals (JCR, Feb 2025).

Learn the basics about Journal Citation Reports
Training videos for Journal Citation Reports

Journal rankings lists 

The ABDC Journal Quality List is targeted at the business discipline in Australia.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index
Australian Political Studies Association Preferred Journal List
Social Sciences Citation Index
Washington Lee Law Journal List