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Metrics for grant applications

How to find and use metrics to support a grant application

Top Papers

Do I have Hot or Highly cited papers?

Irrespective of where your work is best represented, check Web of Science to see if any of your publications are highly cited or hot papers.
Highly Cited Papers are papers that perform in the top 1% based on the number of citations received when compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year (based on Web of Science data).
Hot Papers are papers published in the last two years that are receiving citations quickly after publication. These papers have been cited enough times in the most recent bimonthly period to place them in the top 0.1% when compared to papers in the same field and added to the database in the same period (based on Web of Science data).

  1. Login to Web of Science
  2. Conduct an author search to locate your own papers in the database. 
  3. On your Author Profile page click on the Publications in Web of Science Link in the Metrics Panel (on the right hand side) to view your publications as a set of results.
  4. If you have Hot and/or Highly Cited Papers in your author set of results, you'll see the option to refine to those top papers at the top of the filters.
Example statement:

I have a highly cited paper in the field of Neuroscience and Behaviour published in 2019 (Web of Science, Nov 2022). This means the paper has received enough citations compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year to be placed in the top performing 1% of papers (based on the most recent 10 years of publications).

Publication analysis

Publication analysis in SciVal

Use SciVal to generate a listing of Individual publications and associated metrics based on your publications in Scopus.

  1. In SciVal, select the Overview module.
  2. Select Researchers and groups from the left menu, then type your name under Find existing researcher or group.
  3. Change the date range to include the period you would like to view.
  4. Click the hyperlinked number under Scholarly Output to see a full list of your publications.
  5. Click Export and then Export spreadsheet.

Include the following publication metrics as part of the export:

  • Citations
  • Field-Weighted Citation Impact
  • Field-Weighted Outputs in Top Citation percentiles, per percentile.

Include the subject area names and codes for the FoR subject area classification when exporting lists of publications.

TIP: To determine your 'top papers' take note of the Field Weighted Outputs In Top Citation Percentiles, per percentile in conjunction with the citation count for the document.

Example statement:

My 10 publications in the Field of Research Curriculum and Pedagogy have a Field Weighted Citation Impact of 5.14, meaning they have been cited 5.14 times more that would be expected based on the global average for similar publications (SciVal Dec 2022).

Publication analysis in InCites

  1. Follow the instructions outlined in Create a Researcher Report in InCites to produce your own Researcher Report.
  2. Go to Documents published by WoS Categories (represented in a Tree Map) on the Research Output Tab of your report and click on the View Data link at the bottom of the chart to view the data that underpins the chart.
  3. On the Baselines tab in the left hand side menu click +Add under Baseline for All Items.
  4. Click on the Web of Science Documents count in the table, next to Baseline for All Items to view an overlay that shows a list of all your documents and the metrics calculated for each document in the list.
  5. Export the table to Excel for analysis.

Note: Use the Percentile in Subject Area indicator to sort publications from highest to lowest percentile. Publications in the 98th percentile, are in the top 2% for their subject area. The lowest percentile value is 0, indicating that a paper has received 0 citations.

Example statement:

My article abc is in the top 2% of publications in its subject area, with a Category Normalised Citation Impact of 4.2 (InCites, Dec 2022).