Giovanni Abramo

• MS in Management
• Italian National Research Council

Purpose Scholars face an unprecedented ever increasing demand for acting as reviewers for journals, recruitment and promotion committees, granting agencies, and research assessment agencies. Consequently, journal editors face an ever increasing scarcity of experts willing to act as reviewers. It is not infrequent that reviews diverge, which forces...

Enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of national research systems is a top priority on the policy agendas of many countries. This study focuses on one aspect of the macroeconomic efficiency of research systems: whether research institutions specialize in scientific domains where they have a competitive advantage. To evaluate this, we develope...

Endorsed by the European Research Area, a Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), primarily composed of research institutions and funders, was established in 2022. Its mission is to reform research assessment, emphasizing a shift towards qualitative judgment. This study examines the CoARA initiative from theoretical, practical, and app...

In the evaluation of scientific publications’ impact, the interplay between intrinsic quality and non-scientific factors remains a subject of debate. While peer review traditionally assesses quality, bibliometric techniques gauge scholarly impact. This study investigates the role of non-scientific attributes alongside quality scores from peer revie...

In the current knowledge-based economy, the abilities of the national research system are a key driver of the country’s competitiveness and socio-economic development. This paper compares the scientific standing of the OECD countries and eight other relevant economies. We use a bibliometric indicator of research performance, applied first at the in...

Geographic proximity is widely acknowledged as a primary catalyst for research collaborations in general, and specifically for cross-sector collaborations. This study proposes a large-scale empirical analysis to examine the moderating role of certain territorial features of research infrastructure in the relationship between geographic distance and...

A possible side effect of several research evaluation schemes adopted by governments and research organizations is the discouragement of research diversification and cross-discipline fertilization, which are crucial for major global scientific challenges. This work intends to contribute to the literature stream investigating such initiatives’ effec...

The paper takes a scientometric approach to measure the change in research productivity of Italian academics before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. We propose a composite output/input bibliometric indicator and apply it at the field level, conducting a longitudinal analysis. Although the number of academics in the national academic system has decre...

This work contrasts the scientific standing of the USA and Russia in 146 scientific disciplines. We consider four dimensions of competitive positioning: the contribution to global scientific advancement, the researchers’ productivity, the scientific specialization indexes, and the efficiency in resource allocation across disciplines. Differently fr...

This article aims to explore the effects of Ukrainian policy reform, introducing Scopus and WoS publication requirements for professorship, on the publication behaviour and research performance of professors. Our analysis reveals a better scientific profile, at the time of promotion, of those who obtained professorship after the reform as compared...

Following the Townsville Hospital and Health Service (THHS) strategic revision as a "research-based" institution, A. Brown et al have investigated the impact of THHS research, and its key drivers, based on 15 stakeholder interviews and two quantitative indicators. This commentary argues that the quantitative analyses and findings would have benefit...

In spite of previous research demonstrating the risks involved, and counsel against the practice as early as 1997, some research evaluations continue to use journal impact alone as a surrogate of the number of citations of hosted articles to assess the latter’s impact. Such usage is also taken up by research administrators and policy-makers, with v...

Assessing the performance of universities by output to input indicators requires knowledge of the individual researchers working within them. While in Italy the Ministry of University and Research updates a database of university professors, in all those countries where such databases are not available, measuring research performance is a formidabl...

The paper examines extent of bias in the performance rankings of research organisations when the assessments are based on unsupervised author-name disambiguation algorithms. It compares the outcomes of a research performance evaluation exercise of Italian universities using the unsupervised approach by Caron and van Eck (2014) for derivation of the...

This paper compares the national scientific profiles of 199 countries in 254 fields, tracked by two indices of scientific specialization based respectively on indicators of input and output. For each country, the indicator of inputs considers the number of researchers in each field. The output indicator, named Total Fractional Impact, based on the...

The study of national research assessment exercises serves to evaluate the effectiveness of policies versus their objectives and to improve the formulation of future initiatives. The aim of the current study is to verify whether the introduction of the first performance-based research funding in Italy, based on the 2004–10 VQR assessment, achieved...

The paper explores the impact of Covid-19 on scientists' collaboration behaviour in the 14 countries with the largest research output. The approach is bibliometric, taking the unit of analysis of collaborations as the individual researchers and the co-authorships in their preprints. The time plot of the data confirms a clear discontinuity in the nu...

In this study we are analysing the research performance of Italian and Norwegian professors using constituent components of the Fractional Scientific Strength (FSS) indicator. The main focus is on differences across fields in publication output and citation impact. The overall performance (FSS) of the two countries, which differ considerably in res...

Geographic proximity is acknowledged to be a key factor in research collaborations. Specifically, it can work as a possible substitute for institutional proximity. The present study investigates the relevance of the “proximity” effect for different types of national research collaborations. We apply a bibliometric approach based on the Italian 2010...

This work investigates the effects of researchers’ mobility on their research performance. The reference context is that of national intra-sector mobility, in a country, Italy, characterized by a research system lacking the typical elements of an academic labor market. In particular, the analysis was conducted on 568 academics working at national u...

Geographic proximity is acknowledged to be a key factor in research collaborations. Specifically, it can work as a possible substitute for institutional proximity. The present study investigates the relevance of the "proximity" effect for different types of national research collaborations. We apply a bibliometric approach based on the Italian 2010...

The paper compares the scientific profiles of 199 countries relative to 254 subject categories, based on the impact of knowledge produced in each category, measured by the bibliometric indicator known as Total Fractional Impact (TFI). TFI is calculated on the basis of publications indexed in Web of Science (here over years 2010-2019). The approach...

The massive shock of the COVID-19 pandemic has already shown its negative effects on economies around the world, unprecedented in recent history. COVID-19 infections and containment measures caused a general slowdown in research and new knowledge production. Because of the link between R&D output and economic growth, it is to be expected then that...

We investigate the changes in the self-citation behavior of Italian professors following the introduction of a citation-based incentive scheme, for national accreditation to academic appointments. Previous contributions on self-citation behavior have either focused on small samples or relied on simple models, not controlling for enough confounding...

University-industry research collaboration is one of the major research policy priorities of advanced economies. In this study, we try to identify the main drivers that could influence the propensity of academics to engage in research collaborations with the private sector, in order to better inform policies and initiatives to foster such collabora...

In this introductory paper to the special issue on Scientometric Analysis in Business and Economics, we consider four related issues. First, we outline why we believe it is time to produce a special issue of the Journal of Economic Surveys dedicated to the scientometric analysis and its growing use in the fields of business and economics. Second, w...

Governments and organizations design performance-based research funding systems (PBRFS) for strategic aims, such as to selectively allocate scarce resources and stimulate research efficiency. In this work, we analyze the relative change in research productivity of Italian universities after the introduction of such a system, featuring financial and...

Literature about the scholarly impact of scientific research offers very few contributions on private sector research, and the comparison with public sector. In this work, we try to fill this gap examining the citation-based impact of Italian 2010–2017 publications distinguishing authorship by the private sector from the public sector. In particula...

In this paper we develop a methodology to assess the scientific wealth of territories at field level. Our methodology uses a bibliometric approach based on the observation of academic research performance and overall scientific production in each territory. We apply it to assess disparities in the Italian territories in the medical specialties at t...

In this study, the scientific performance of Italian and Norwegian university professors is analysed using bibliometric indicators. The study is based on over 36,000 individuals and their publication output during the period 2011–2015. Applying a multidimensional indicator in which several aspects of the research performance are captured, we find l...

This study on public–private research collaboration measures the variation over time of the propensity of academics to collaborate with colleagues from private companies. It also investigates the change in weights of the main drivers underlying the academics’ propensity to collaborate, and whether the type profile of the collaborating academics cha...

In this study, the scientific performance of Italian and Norwegian university professors is analysed using bibliometric indicators. The study is based on over 36,000 individuals and their publication output during the period 2011-2015. Applying a multidimensional indicator in which several aspects of the research performance are captured, we find l...

This study investigates the convergence of two bibliometric approaches to the measurement of interdisciplinary research: one based on analyzing disciplinary diversity in the reference list of publications, the other based on the disciplinary diversity of authors of publications. In particular we measure the variety, balance, disparity and integrate...

University-industry research collaboration is one of the major research policy priorities of advanced economies. In this study, we try to identify the main drivers that could influence the propensity of academics to engage in research collaborations with the private sector, in order to better inform policies and initiatives to foster such collabora...

This study on public-private research collaboration measures the variation over time of the propensity of academics to collaborate with colleagues from private companies. It also investigates the change in weights of the main drivers underlying the academics' propensity to collaborate, and whether the type profile of the collaborating academics cha...

The formulation of national research policies would benefit greatly from reliable strategic analysis of the scientific infrastructure, aimed at identifying the relevant strengths and weaknesses at field level. Bibliometric methodologies thus far proposed in the literature are not completely satisfactory. This work proposes a novel "output-to-input-...

Policy makers are interested in the influence of geographic distance on knowledge flows, however these can be expected to vary across research fields. The effects of geographic distance on flows are analyzed by means of citations to scientific literature. The field of observation consists of the 2010-2012 Italian publications and relevant citations...

In this work we ask whether and to what extent applying a predictor of publications' impact better than early citations, has an effect on the assessment of research performance of individual scientists. Specifically, we measure the total impact of Italian professors in the sciences and economics in a period of time, valuing their publications first...

The growing complexity of scientific challenges demands increasingly intense research collaboration, both domestic and international. The resulting trend affects not only the modes of producing new knowledge, but also the way it is disseminated within scientific communities. This paper analyses the relationship between the "degree of internationali...

This work analyzes the variation over time of the effect of geographic distance on knowledge flows. The flows are measured through the citations exchanged between scientific publications, including and excluding self-citations. To calculate geographic distances between citing and cited publication, each publication is associated with a "prevailing"...

This work applies a new approach to measure knowledge flows. Assuming that citation linkages between articles imply a flow of knowledge from the cited to the citing authors, we investigate the geographic flows of scientific knowledge produced in Italy across its regions, at both overall and field level. Furthermore, we measure the the specializatio...

This study is about public-private research collaboration. In particular, we want to measure how the propensity of academics to collaborate with their colleagues from private firms varies over time and whether the typical profile of such academics change. Furthermore, we investigate the change of the weights of main drivers underlying the academics...

The massive shock of the COVID-19 pandemic is already showing its negative effects on economies around the world, unprecedented in recent history. COVID-19 infections and containment measures have caused a general slowdown in research and new knowledge production. Because of the link between R&D spending and economic growth, it is to be expected th...

We investigate the changes in the self-citation behavior of Italian professors following the introduction of a citation-based incentive scheme, for national accreditation to academic appointments. Previous contributions on self-citation behavior have either focused on small samples or relied on simple models, not controlling for all confounding fac...

Governments and organizations design performance-based research funding systems (PBFRS) for strategic aims, such as to selectively allocate scarce resources and stimulate research efficiency. In this work we analyze the relative change in research productivity of Italian universities after the introduction of such a system, featuring financial and...

The growing complexity of scientific challenges demands increasingly intense research collaboration, both domestic and international. The resulting trend affects not only the modes of producing new knowledge, but also the way it is disseminated within scientific communities. This paper analyses the relationship between the “degree of internationali...

Literature about the scholarly impact of scientific research offers very few contributions on private sector research, and the comparison with public sector. In this work, we try to fill this gap examining the citation-based impact of Italian 2010-2017 publications distinguishing authorship by the private sector from the public sector. In particula...

In this work, we assess whether and to what extent the latest Italian national policy initiatives intended, among others, to contrast favoritism and foster recruitment effectiveness have resulted in the desired effects. To answer the question, we propose two related analyses. One compares the research performance ratings of recruits in two subseque...

In this paper we develop a methodology to assess the scientific wealth of territories at field level. Our methodology uses a bibliometric approach based on the observation of academic research performance and overall scientific production in each territory. We apply it to assess disparities in the Italian territories in the medical specialties at t...

This work analyzes the variation over time of the effect of geographic distance on knowledge flows. The flows are measured through the citations exchanged between scientific publications, including and excluding self-citations. To calculate geographic distances between citing and cited publication, each publication is associated with a “prevailing”...

In this work we ask whether and to what extent applying a predictor of publications’ impact better than early citations, has an effect on the assessment of research performance of individual scientists. Specifically, we measure the total impact of Italian professors in the sciences and economics in a period of time, valuing their publications first...

This is the first ever attempt of application in a country other than Italy of the output-to-input indicator FSS, to assess and compare the research performance of professors and universities, within and between countries. A special attention has been devoted to the presentation of the methodology developed to set up a common field classification s...

This work applies a new approach to measure knowledge flows. Assuming that citation linkages between articles imply a flow of knowledge from the cited to the citing authors, we investigate the geographic flows of scientific knowledge produced in Italy across its regions, at both overall and field level. Furthermore, we measure the the specializatio...

In this study we are analysing the research performance of Italian and Norwegian professors using constituent components of the Fractional Scientific Strength (FSS) indicator. The main focus is on differences across fields in publication output and citation impact. The overall performance (FSS) of the two countries, which differ considerably in res...

Policy makers are interested in the influence of geographic distance on knowledge flows, however these can be expected to vary across research fields. The effects of geographic distance on flows are analyzed by means of citations to scientific literature. The field of observation consists of the 2010–2012 Italian publications and relevant citations...

This paper analyses the influence of geographic distance on knowledge flows, measured through citations to scientific publications. Previous works using the same approach are limited to single disciplines. In this study, we analyse the Italian scientific production in all disciplines matured in the period 2010-2012. To calculate the geographic dist...

This paper analyses the influence of geographic distance on knowledge flows, measured through citations to scientific publications. Previous works using the same approach are limited to single disciplines. In this study, we analyse the Italian scientific production in all disciplines matured in the period 2010–2012. To calculate the geographic dist...

The formulation of national research policies would benefit greatly from reliable strategic analysis of the scientific infrastructure, aimed at identifying the relevant strengths and weaknesses at field level. Bibliometric methodologies thus far proposed in the literature are not completely satisfactory. This work proposes a novel “output-to-input-...

The ability to predict the long-term impact of a scientific article soon after its publication is of great value towards accurate assessment of research performance. In this work we test the hypothesis that good predictions of long-term citation counts can be obtained through a combination of a publication's early citations and the impact factor of...

In analogy to the technology balance of payments, in this paper we propose a possible way to set up a "balance of knowledge flows" (BKF), recording world flows of knowledge within the scientific community. Adopting a pure bibliometric approach, the "knowledge" traced in the BKF is that produced and exchanged by the scientific community by means of...

The intention of this work is to analyze top scientists' collaboration behavior at the "international", "domestic extramural" and "intramural" levels, and compare it to that of their lesser performing colleagues. The field of observation consists of the entire faculty of the Italian academic system, and so the coauthorship of scientific publication...

The current work addresses a theme previously unexplored in the literature: that of whether the results arising from research activity in fields other than the scientist's pri-mary field have greater value than the others. Operationally, the authors proceed by identifying: the scientific production of each researcher under observation; field classi...

In this work, we try to answer the question of which method, peer review vs bibliometrics, better predicts the future overall scholarly impact of scientific publications. We measure the agreement between peer review evaluations of Web of Science indexed publications submitted to the first Italian research assessment exercise and long-term citations...

This work investigates the research performance of foreign faculty in the Italian academic system. Incoming professors compose l'1% of total faculty across the sciences, although with variations by discipline. Their scientific performance measured over 2010-2014 is on average better than that of their Italian colleagues: the greatest difference is...

This study inserts in the stream of research on the perverse effects that PBRF systems can induce in the subjects evaluated. The authors’ opinion is that more often than not, it is the doubtful scientific basis of the evaluation criteria that leave room for opportunistic behaviors. The work examines the 2004–2010 Italian national research assessmen...

In this work, we try to answer the question of which method, peer review versus bibliometrics, better predicts the future overall scholarly impact of scientific publications. We measure the agreement between peer review evaluations of Web of Science indexed publications submitted to the first Italian research assessment exercise and long-term citat...

This is the first ever attempt of application in a country other than Italy of a research efficiency indicator (FSS), to assess and compare the performance of professors and universities, within and between countries. A special attention has been devoted to the presentation of the methodology developed to set up a common field classification scheme...

This work analyzes the differences in collaboration behavior between males and females among a particular type of scholars: top scientists, and as compared to non top scientists. The field of observation consists of the Italian academic system and the co-authorships of scientific publications by 11,145 professors. The results obtained from a cross-...

This work analyzes the differences in collaboration behavior between males and females among a particular type of scholars: top scientists, and as compared to non top scientists. The field of observation consists of the Italian academic system and the co-authorships of scientific publications by 11,145 professors. The results obtained from a cross-...

The present work investigates the relations between amplitude and type of collaboration (intramural, extramural domestic or international) and output of specialized versus diversified research. By specialized or diversified research, we mean within or beyond the author's dominant research topic. The field of observation is the scientific production...

This work investigates the research performance of foreign faculty in the Italian academic system. Incoming professors compose l.1% of total faculty across the sciences, although with variations by discipline. Their scientific performance measured over 2010–2014 is on average better than that of their Italian colleagues: the greatest difference is...

Bibliometricians have long recurred to citation counts to measure the impact of publications on the advancement of science. However, since the earliest days of the field, some scholars have questioned whether all citations should be worth the same, and have gone on to weight them by a variety of factors. However sophisticated the operationalization...

The present work investigates the relations between amplitude and type of collaboration (intramural, extramural domestic or international) and output of specialized versus diversified research. By specialized or diversified research, we mean within or beyond the author's dominant research topic. The field of observation is the scientific production...

The ability to predict the long-term impact of a scientific article soon after its publication is of great value towards accurate assessment of research performance. In this work we test the hypothesis that good predictions of long-term citation counts can be obtained through a combination of a publication's early citations and the impact factor of...

In analogy to the technology balance of payments, in this paper we propose a possible way to set up a “balance of knowledge flows” (BKF), recording world flows of knowledge within the scientific community. Adopting a pure bibliometric approach, the “knowledge” traced in the BKF is that produced and exchanged by the scientific community by means of...

In benchmarking international research, although publication and citation analyses should not be used to compare different disciplines, scientometrists frequently fail to resist the temptation to present rankings based on total publications and citations. Such measures are affected by significant distortions, due to the uneven fertility across scie...

Italy lags quite behind vis-a'-vis other industrialized countries, in public to private technology transfer. One of the possible causes might be the mismatch between new knowledge supplied by public research and industry demand. We test this hypothesis through a survey of leading public research scientists in four high-tech sectors. The findings sh...

This paper deals with the technology transfer activities of the main public research institution in Italy, the Italian Research Council, CNR. A comparative analysis on patenting and licensing performances between CNR and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT has been carried out. Findings show that: research expenses being equal, CNR paten...

The growing complexity of challenges involved in scientific progress demands ever more frequent application of competencies and knowledge from different scientific fields. The present work analyzes the degree of collaboration among scientists from different disciplines in order to identify the most frequent "combinations of knowledge" in research a...

It is well known that women are underrepresented in the academic systems of many countries. Gender discrimination is one of the factors that could contribute to this phenomenon. This study considers a recent national academic recruitment campaign in Italy, examining whether women are subject to more or less bias than men. The findings show that no...

We investigate whether and in what measure scientists tend to diversify their research activity, and if this tendency varies according to their belonging to different disciplinary areas. We analyze the nature of research diversification along three dimensions: extent of diversification, intensity of diversification, and degree of relatedness of top...

The analysis of research collaboration by field is traditionally conducted beginning with the classification of the publications from the context of interest. In this work we propose an alternative approach based on the classification of the authors by field. The proposed method is more precise if the intended use is to provide a benchmark for the...

Bibliometric indicators are increasingly used in support of decisions for recruitment, career advancement, rewarding and selective funding for scientists. Given the importance of the applications, bibliometricians are obligated to carry out empirical testing of the robustness of the indicators, in simulations of real contexts. In this work we compa...

The objective of the current work is to identify the territorial scientific specializations present in Italy, at the levels of regions and provinces (NUTS2 and NUTS3). To do this, we take a bibliometric approach based on the scientific production of the entire public research system in the hard sciences sphere, for the five years 2006-2010. In part...

The evaluation of performance at the individual level is of fundamental importance in informing management decisions. The literature provides various indicators and types of measures, however a problem that is still unresolved and little addressed is how to compare the performance of researchers working in different fields (apples to oranges). In t...

This paper presents a methodology for measuring the technical efficiency of research activities. It is based on the application of data envelopment analysis to bibliometric data on the Italian university system. For that purpose, different input values (research personnel by level and extra funding) and output values (quantity, quality and level of...

National exercises for the evaluation of research activity by universities are becoming regular practice in ever more countries. These exercises have mainly been conducted through the application of peer-review methods. Bibliometrics has not been able to offer a valid large-scale alternative because of almost overwhelming difficulties in identifyin...

The use of outcome control modes of research evaluation exercises is ever more frequent. They are conceived as tools to stimulate increased levels of research productivity, and to guide choices in allocating components of government research budgets for publicly funded institutions. There are several contributions in the literature that compare the...

The literature dedicated to analysis of the difference in research productivity between the sexes tends to agree in indicating better performance for men. This study enters in the vein of work on the subject. Through bibliometric examination of the entire population of research personnel working in the scientific-technological disciplines of Italia...

The study of the concept of "scientific excellence" and the methods for its measurement and evaluation is taking on increasing importance in the development of research policies in many nations. However, scientific excellence results as difficult to define in both conceptual and operational terms, because of its multi-dimensional and highly complex...

The incidence of extramural collaboration in academic research activities is increasing as a result of various factors. These factors include policy measures aimed at fostering partnership and networking among the various components of the research system, policies which are in turn justified by the idea that knowledge sharing could increase the ef...

This paper employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess both technical and cost efficiency of research activities of the Italian university system. Differently from both peer review and the top-down discipline-invariant bibliographic approaches used elsewhere, a bottom-up bibliometric methodology is applied. Publications are assigned first to...

The intention of this work is to analyze top scientists’ collaboration behavior at the “international”, “domestic extramural” and “intramural” levels, and compare it to that of their lesser performing colleagues. The field of observation consists of the entire faculty of the Italian academic system, and so the coauthorship of scientific publication...

The state of the art on the issue of sex differences in research efficiency agrees in recognizing higher performances for males, however there are divergences in explaining the possible causes. One of the causes advanced is that there are sex differences in the availability of aptitude at the "high end". By comparing sex differences in concentratio...

We are witnessing a rapid trend towards the adoption of exercises for evaluation of national research systems, generally based on the peer review approach. They respond to two main needs: stimulating higher efficiency in research activities by public laboratories, and realizing better allocative efficiency in government funding of such institutions...