Alicia de Andrés - Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
Impact factors of the journals and Hirsch index are commonly used to evaluate researchers from close but different areas who are compelled to compete for the same funding and positions. But theses factors depend strongly on the area without a clear foundation. A straightforward normalization would allow comparing different researchers and areas more fairly.
Upper panel: (correction factor-1) for the 35 categories. lower panel: Hirsch index,when normalized by the correction factors, equivalent to h=10 for the category “mathematics”.