Evaluation of 50 Greek Science and Engineering University Departments using Google Scholar

TL;DR

This study assesses the scientific output of 1978 Greek university academics across 50 departments using Google Scholar metrics, revealing disciplinary differences, impact of PhD origin, and meritocracy issues.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive scientometric evaluation of Greek science and engineering departments, highlighting disparities and factors influencing academic impact.

Findings

Significant differences in scientific output among departments of the same discipline.

Higher h-index for academics with US PhDs compared to European or Greek PhDs.

Low correlation between academic rank and h-index in some departments.

Abstract

In this paper, the scientometric evaluation of faculty members of 50 Greek Science and Engineering University Departments is presented. 1978 academics were examined in total. The number of papers, citations, h-index and i10-index have been collected for each academic, department, school and university using Google Scholar and the citations analysis program Publish or Perish. Analysis of the collected data showed that departments of the same academic discipline are characterized by significant differences on the scientific outcome. In addition, in the majority of the evaluated departments a significant difference in h-index between academics who report scientific activity on the departments website and those who do not, was observed. Moreover, academics who earned their PhD title in the USA demonstrate higher indices in comparison to scholars who obtained their PhD title in Europe or in Greece. Finally, the correlation between the academic rank and the scholars h-index (or the number of their citations) is quite low in some departments, which, under specific circumstances, could be an indication of the lack of meritocracy.