Metrics market

摘要

With the FIFA World Cup well under way in Brazil (and certain teams already on their way home) there is much analysis of what went wrong for some and what is going right for others. In a parallel effort, marketing departments across the globe are engaged in a final push to link the events on the field with their brands and products. The result can be a curious, even surreal, blend. Witness the announcement by analytics company Thomson Reuters, for instance, that it was kicking off its own World Cup - of research performance. In the first round, the firm announced that England could have reversed its disappointing loss against Italy had it been playing on the basis of research citation impact. By the same comparison, Australia would have defeated Chile - but the Netherlands would still have crushed Spain. Four more rounds of elimination will pit countries against each other in terms of their proportion of international collaborations, highly cited papers and relative world impact. Who can wait for the United States-Switzerland semi-final?