Towards a quantitative evaluation of multidisciplinary institutions

Abstract

Each research field has its own way of citing, working, progressing, etc. which makes comparative evaluations between disciplines a difficult task and, at times, an unjust and imperfect process. This shows traditional evaluations to have limitations and inconveniences that need to be corrected to smooth the path towards the analysis or quantification of research results that are their «raison d’être». In this paper we demonstrate the usefulness of a quantitative methodology for the evaluation of the scientific output of inter- and multidisciplinary institutions, using only three straightforward indicators to show the relevance of the scientific output, that of the average researcher and of the average article. The importance of our analysis is that it shows the methodology proposed in 2000 by Ramírez, García, and del Río, to be useful for comparing different research results, for revealing relevant information, is easy to apply and forms part of a process to adapt evaluation methods to the characteristics of science and the specifics of each discipline.