What are scientific leaders? The introduction of a normalized impact factor

TL;DR

The paper introduces a normalized impact factor (NIF) to evaluate scientific influence, defining leaders as those with NIF ≥ 1, applicable universally and robust against self-citations.

Contribution

It proposes a universal, robust normalized impact factor to assess individual and community scientific influence, applicable across diverse publication traditions.

Findings

NIF effectively identifies scientific leaders with influence at least equal to their peers.

The measure is applicable across different scientific communities with varying citation practices.

Applied to American Physical Society referees, it highlights influential individuals.

Abstract

We define a normalized impact factor suitable to assess in a simple way both the strength of scientific communities and the research influence of individuals. We define those ones with $NIF \geq 1$ as being scientific leaders since they would influence their peers at least as much as they are influenced by them. The NIF is distinguished because (a) this has a clear and universal meaning being applicable with equal efficiency to individuals belonging to scientific communities with quite different publication and citation traditions and (b) this is robust against self-citation expedient. This is eventually applied to a community derived from the list of outstanding referees recognized by the American Physical Society in 2008.