What is the h-index?
A simple definition of the h-index
An h-index is a rough summary measure of a researcher’s productivity and impact. Productivity is quantified by the number of papers, and impact by the number of citations the researchers' publications have received.
The h-index can be useful for identifying the centrality of certain researchers as researchers with a higher h-index will, in general, have produced more work that is considered important by their peers.
The h-index was originally defined by J. E. Hirsch in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article as the number of papers with citation number ≥ h. An h-index of 3 hence means that the author has published at least three articles, of which each has been cited at least three times.
The h-index can also simply be determined by charting the article's citation counts. The h-index is then determined by the interception of the chart's diagonal with the citation data. In this case, there are 3 papers that are above the diagonal, and hence the h-index is 3.
The definition of the h-index comes with quite a few desirable features:
- First, it is relatively unaffected by outliers. If e.g. the top-ranked article had been cited 1,000 times, this would not change the h-index.
- Second, the h-index will generally only increase if the researcher continues to produce good work. The h-index would increase to 4 if another paper was added with 4 citations, but would not increase if papers were added with fewer citations.
- Third, the h-index will never be greater than the number of papers the author has published; to have an h-index of 20, the author must have published at least 20 articles which have each been cited at least 20 times.
Step-by-step outline: How to calculate your h-index
- Step 1: List all your published articles in a table.
- Step 2: For each article gather the number of how often it has been cited.
- Step 3: Rank the papers by the number of times they have been cited.
- Step 4: The h-index can now be inferred by finding the entry at which the rank in the list is greater than the number of citations.
Here is an example of a table where articles have been ranked by their citation count and the h-index has been inferred to be 3.
| Rank | Article | Times cited | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Article A | 11 | . |
2 | Article B | 6 | . |
3 | Article C | 4 | ← h-index is 3 |
4 | Article D | 3 | ← The citation number here is less than the article rank |
5 | Article E | 3 | . |
6 | Article F | 1 | . |
Luckily, there are services like Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar that can do the heavy lifting and automatically provide the citation count data and calculate the h-index.
Why it is important for your career to know about the h-index
The h-index is not something that needs to be calculated on a daily basis, but it's good to know where you are for several reasons. First, climbing the h-index ladder is something worth celebrating. If it's worth opening a bottle of champagne or just getting a cafe latte, that's up to you, but seriously take your time to celebrate this achievement (there aren't that many in academia). But more importantly, the h-index is one of the measures funding agencies or the university's hiring committee calculate when you apply for a grant or a position. Given the often huge number of applications, the h-index is calculated in order to rank candidates and apply a pre-filter.
Of course, funding agencies and hiring committees do use tools for calculating the h-index, and so can you.
It is important to note that depending on the underlying data that these services have collected, your h-index might be different. Let's have a look at the h-index of the well-known physicist Stephen W. Hawking to illustrate it:
| Service | Hawking's h-index | |
|---|---|---|
| Web of Science | 76 | |
| Scopus | 72 | https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=6701475619 |
| Google Scholar | 130 |
So, if you are aware of a number of citations of your work that are not listed in these databases, e.g. because they are in conference proceedings not indexed in these databases, then please state that in your application. It might give your h-index an extra boost.
➡️ Learn more: What is a good h-index?
Can all your academic achievements be summarized by a single number?
Definitely not! People are aware of this, and there have been many attempts to address particular shortcomings of the h-index, but in the end, it's just another number that is meant to emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of the h-index. Anyway, you have to know the rules in order to play the game, and you have to know the rules in order to change them. If you feel that your h-index does not properly reflect your academic achievements, then be proactive and mention it in your application!
Frequently Asked Questions about h-index
🤠 How is the h-index defined?
An h-index is a rough summary measure of a researcher’s productivity and impact. Productivity is quantified by the number of papers, and impact by the number of citations the researchers' publications have received.
🤓 How do I find my h-index on Google Scholar?
Google Scholar can automatically calculate your h-index, read our guide How to calculate your h-index on Google Scholar for further instructions.
😌 How do I find my h-index on Scopus?
Even though Scopus needs to crunch millions of citations to find the h-index, the look-up is pretty fast. Read our guide How to calculate your h-index using Scopus for further instructions.
😬 How do I find my h-index using Web of Science?
Web of Science is a database that has compiled millions of articles and citations. This data can be used to calculate all sorts of bibliographic metrics including an h-index. Read our guide How to use Web of Science to calculate your h-index for further instructions.
🥳 Why is an h-index important?
The h-index is not something that needs to be calculated on a daily basis, but it's good to know where you are for several reasons. First, climbing the h-index ladder is something worth celebrating. But more importantly, the h-index is one of the measures funding agencies or the university's hiring committee calculate when you apply for a grant or a position. Given the often huge number of applications, the h-index is calculated in order to rank candidates and apply a pre-filter.
