h-index

The h-index was introduced by J.E. Hirsch, University of California, San Diego, to provide a measure of an individual's scientific research output [*]. It avoids a number of disadvantages of other evaluation criteria of a scientist's success (e.g. number of publications or total number of citations) as discussed in detail in J.E. Hirsch's work. If divided by the number of active years, the parameter m is obtained, enabling the comparison of scientists of different age.

[*] J.E. Hirsch, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 102, 16569 (2005); physics/0508025
see also Science 309, 1181 (2005) and Nature 436, 900 (2005)



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