I think that too much attention has been given to citations during the last years. (see also my reply to https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_do_bibliometric_studies_get_so_much_attention_in_todays_world_of_academia). There is much more in science: first of all, the contents of publications. The value of contents can hardly be estimated by citations only. Technological innovations on the basis of science, informing politicians and the public about possibilities of developments and about dangers of different kinds, teaching students, popularization of science results, ... - all this is impact of science and of scientists.

Your scientific contribution(s) is more important than citations, all of us as researchers are trying to improve life on the earth...

Nice question...

Regards,

Emad

The research field and the quality of the research is more important than the citation.

When it comes to outreach, I would recommend working on video platforms and podcasts. This ranges from proper, high quality lectures to educationals to overwies to easy to understand visualizations of complex problems. Thus, an entry point is created for scholars (in their spare time) and the broader public alike. The culturaly quite dominant anglosphere with the USA in the center made big leaps here. I can't tell about other regions.

I think this form of communication can be a great multiplier for one's own work, both by publicizing one's own research group beyond one's circle of haze and by getting young researchers excited about one's own field. Academia often consists of only a modest number of people (and globally at that), depending on the field. "Social media" with its incredible reach in general has completely reshaped socializing, why shouldn't this apply to Academia as well (especially as older generations gradually retire from the business).

However, this is just a supplement and no substitute for publishing high-quality scholarly papers. I think it's like with many things, you often choose the least evil (or in lack of alternative), like with the H-index and consorts.

You hope that your students and their eventual students will be more impactful on science than your publication efforts as cited. In the near term, the methods you develop and the novel phenomena you describe will be important additions to science.

Researchers are not "trying to improve life on the earth...". We are hopefully pursuing knowledge with the scientific method.

If you want them to have an impact on society, then they will just need to discover something new, and useful. However, their publications and citations will make them known in the scientific community, and will open so many doors for them.

Dear Aaron,

this is an excellent question of broad general interest to many RG members. Let me just add a personal thoughts. Today the scientific work of a researcher is too often reduce to a handful of numbers such as citations count, h-index, scores etc. This is because numbers are easily determined and easy to compare. I'm not sure if this is a good development (in fact I'm sure that it is not) but we cannot stop this development. I did 40+ years of research in inorganic chemistry and I'm happy with my citation count and h-index etc. As inorganic chemists we never tried "to improve life on earth" but to solve chemical problems and synthesize exciting new chemical compounds. Beyond citations you e.g. create a major impact by establishing a scientific "school". This means that you educate young scientists who start successful academic careers and eventually become professors etc. themselves. Yet another major impact is created when your research (even if it is "basic" research) later finds useful practical applications and is used by other researchers to solve their problems.

Good luck with your own research and best wishes, Frank Edelmann

Dear Aaron Liu , in my personal opinion, the best way to impact positively in your students is by being a good mentor.

If you´re lucky you will had met a professor or someone else that helped you to choose a life path, in this case a professional career in science, and if you´re really lucky -as I´m- you will had met two or more. These mentors are important in our lives, they showed us the wonders and the joy of science, they shared with us that feeling of discovery and amazement. But not just that, a good mentor also shared the right way to do science, to look at the details, to see the forest and not just a single tree, to look for mistakes in your work, to look for solutions and promoting imagination to go further than the beaten track. Help them to think, to write the proposals for getting funds, to write the results, to comunicate them beyond the academic world, to collobarate to build a network of researchers-friends.

Be close and fair, they will appreciate it.

Hope it helps. Good luck with your research and advicing.

Regards.

Hi,

What you are presenting, and the quality of the scientific outcomes are more important than the citation and other characters.

If the articles are of quality, they go beyond citations. The number of citations do not have any relation to the quality of the article or researcher.

I feel number of citations is a minor issue and one should not worry about. The important fact is the impact your research has done on the society. Then the researcher has created an impact much beyond citations!

Thanks, Professor Frank T. Edelmann and Professor Aaron Liu for your insights.

The purpose of research is to advance science, and that is reflected in # of citations. If you want to impact society, go into politics (for negative impact).

The below is an inspiring reply from Prof Luis (Nando) Ochoa Professor of Smart Grids and Power Systems, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne:

Hi Aaron, You raised a very nice question. To start with, citation numbers/indices are NOT great indicators. They are terrible. For instance, a paper that is extremely useful to industry people is unlikely to get many citations because they do not write papers as much as academics/researchers do. On the other hand, a low-quality paper can get many citations because papers are pointing out those mistakes/limitations/etc. So, citations or indices do not necessarily mean there is quality or a positive impact on society. What is impact then? And how can we measure it? There are multiple avenues to define impact beyond papers and citations. Below are some I like. 1. Industry. Your research can influence industry practices, become a product, become a service, etc. In short, it can be translated into the 'real world'. This requires a lot of collaboration with industry which means projects and funding. It could be entrepreneurship. It could also involve technical reports, patents, new engineering requirements, standards, etc. 2. Government. Your research can influence policy. Giving evidence to decision-makers to support a certain tech or approach can have a massive impact on society in years to come. 3. Researchers. Your supervision style as well as your research itself will shape people (your research students). Most of them will go to industry or government which in turn can have an indirect impact on society (points 1 and 2). 4. Education. Your research can be used to adapt and influence the teaching done for undergrads and postgrads. New content, methods, books, etc. And this can also have an indirect impact (points 1 and 2). But all of the avenues are tricky to measure. And even if you can measure aspects of it (e.g., funding, patents, books, etc.), it is difficult to assign quality and give them adequate weights (when assessing someone). This is the unfortunate reason why the academic world ends up using the number of papers, citations and h-indices as main metrics. A bit lazy perhaps. And this is also the reason why you will find predatory journals and people playing the system to increase those metrics. At the end of the day, as an academic/researcher, you will need to decide the direction of the impact you want to make. And, in that decision, you will need to include your strategy to get hired/promoted. Unfortunately, it's challenging for both to be aligned. But is not impossible ;-)

To this end, the first step is to distinguish between authors of publications and to separate the true authors from the false authors (see below) who benefit unduly from citations. Only then can the credits due to the citations be used.

=================================================

Bad practices in research: Gift, honorary or guest authorship

Gift authorship refers to the practice of offering authorship to a senior or junior colleague in the blatant or surreptitious hope that they will return the favor. Honorary authorship refers to those who are named as authors merely because they hold senior positions within the service or facility where the research occurred, and may have helped secure funding. Guest authorship refers to senior authors who are included because of their respect or influence in the hope that this will increase the likelihood of publication and/or impact of the paper once published. All three types of authorship are at best opportunistic and at worse scientific misconduct [4].

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41393-017-0057-8