Impact factor of bigger journals from more reputed publishers is bound to be higher than the rest as they talk of quality of research paper.

However the smaller lesser known publishers and their journals should not be treated any less. Open access journal and publication based on payment must be discouraged as often business angle is likely to dilute the reputation of journal.  Publication should be based on quality of research and not on payment of fees.

I am sure this attracts a lot of debate globally.

But some criteria has to be there in order to evaluate our research internally as well as globally.

The thing is that the funding agencies would like to have some simple indicators to evaluate (and compare) the research output of different research groups in order to decide which amount of funds will be assigned to each group (be it through grants or e.g. through direct government funding).

Thanks to a conflation of various factors, in many cases the impact factor of journals where the members of a given research group published became just such an indicator. See the links below for further details.

In particular, the third link is to the paper The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor by Eugene Garfield who originally came up with the very concept of impact factor. The paper explains that the use of impact factor for evaluating the research output and making funding decisions was not originally intended. 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11953682

http://www.editage.com/insights/why-you-should-not-use-the-journal-impact-factor-to-evaluate-research

http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/jamajif2006.pdf

If one follows the homologated culture and areas of research that are in the mainstreams then it may be that his impact factor is higher. If one is a true innovator, his works will be cited years or decades after his death. If one follows the trends, it is likely that he will have more followers. If he deals with cutting-edge topics, he will be alone in front of a mirror.

This happens in general. As a part of scientific journals, instead there are the lobbies and rope teams that multiply the collective publications and mutual citations. Also there are chief editors and referees of journals that use their weapons to take revenge of the failures suffered and / or their enemies.

In the exact sciences, it is much more likely that the recognition of the true value comes out in time. In socio-economic sciences especially in the application ones is difficult to measure the value of research. However, it is distressing to see that the work to which a scholar has devoted more time and intellectual effort are the ones that most are ignored by most.

Impact factor of bigger journals from more reputed publishers is bound to be higher than the rest as they talk of quality of research paper.

However the smaller lesser known publishers and their journals should not be treated any less. Open access journal and publication based on payment must be discouraged as often business angle is likely to dilute the reputation of journal.  Publication should be based on quality of research and not on payment of fees.

I am sure this attracts a lot of debate globally.

But some criteria has to be there in order to evaluate our research internally as well as globally.