On 16 May the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment was issued by international scholars to highlight “a pressing need to improve the ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated by funding agencies, academic institutions, and other parties.” Work on the Declaration on Research Assessment was begun in December. DORA calls on universities not to use journal-based metrics “as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles.” [Full text]

Thomson Reuters announced changes in the definition and ranking of highly-cited authors and institutions on 19 February. The new methodology will be applied to the Web of Science database in May 2013. Changes include a new 10-year “moving window, with citations counted over an additional year, so every paper is available for citation for at least 12 months.” The full release is on this page. EUI members can access the Web of Science database via this link.