what is h index in research

The h-index is a metric used to evaluate the cumulative impact of an authors scholarly output and performance. It measures both the productivity and citation impact of an authors publications, providing a focused snapshot of their research performance. The h-index was proposed by J.E. Hirsch in 2005 and is defined as the highest number of publications of a scientist that received h or more citations each while the other publications have not more than h citations each. For example, an h-index of 10 means that among all publications by one author, 10 of these publications have received at least 10 citations each. The h-index is designed to improve upon simpler measures such as the total number of citations or publications. It is used as a standard scholarly metric to compare researchers performances within their field of research and is commonly used in the recruitment processes for academic positions and taken into consideration when applying for academic or research grants. Different databases will give different values for the h-index because each database must calculate the value based on the citations it contains.