Skip to Main Content
Home

Research Impact

A guide to how to maximise your research influence and extend your metrics.

Author Metrics

The h-Index is the popular term used for a publication metric designed to balance comparisons between authors in different fields.

Named in 2005 by its originator, Jorge E. Hirsch, the h-Index is the result of a simple mathematical formula, which Hirsch noted "gives an estimate of the importance, significance, and broad impact of a scientist's cumulative research contributions" (16572). 

 

h-index score is a standard scholarly metric in which the number of published papers, and the number of times their author is cited, is put into relation. The formula is based on the number of papers (h) that have been cited, and how often, compared to those that have not been cited (or cited as much). (Elsevier)

 

Works Cited

Hirsch JE. An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. PNAS 2005;102(46):16569–72. From: The h-Index: A Helpful Guide for Scientists.

The Ultimate How-to Guide on the h-index. Paperpile. 

What is a good h-Index? Elsevier Author Services.
 

 

Many aggregator sites will calculate your h-index score automatically; however, if you want to try it manually, it is a relatively simple process.

  1. Collect all of your publications (including co-authored papers) in a list or table.
  2. List the number of times each paper has been cited in another publication
  3. Sort the list by the citations, from largest to smallest.
  4. Examine your list and determine which of your entries has fewer citations than its place on the list (so, for example, if the 6th ranked paper has 5 citations, that makes your h-index 5)
  5. Finalise your h-index number.

The H-Index is useful for:

  • Comparing researchers of similar career length.
  • Comparing researchers in a similar field, subject, or Department, and who publish in the same journal categories
  • Obtaining a focused snapshot of a researcher’s performance.

Citations will be different from resource to resource, so your h-Index score may change dramatically depending on whether you're looking at data from Google Scholar, Scopus, or Web of Science. As Hirsch noted:

Obviously a single number can never give more than a rough approximation to an individual's multifaceted profile, and many other factors should be considered in combination in evaluating an individual.

It is also important to note that the h-Index:

  • Does not take into account the number of authors on a paper;
  • Penalises early-career scholars;
  • May cause review articles to have a greater impact;
  • Proves it is difficult to compare fields and disciplines directly;
  • May marginalise interdisciplinary and EDIA researchers.

The h-Index is an attractive metric, but it should be used with caution, as it gives an incomplete picture of the researcher's productivity. For an accessible approach to this question, see the below video:

Haustein, S., et al. What Is the H-index and What Are Its Limitations? Or: Stop Using the H-index [animation]. Zenodo, 2025, doi:10.5281/zenodo.14975364.

Creative Commons License

This guide has been created by the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License unless otherwise marked.

Creative Commons Attribution License