Abstract Researchers’ performance is often evaluated quantitatively through metrics like the number of scientific papers, the number of citations these received, and the H-index, perpetuating the “Publish or Perish” culture. Yet such metrics have inherent biases favoring older, established researchers and fail to account for disciplinary differences or temporal relevance of contributions. To address this inequity, we aimed to create a global, age- and field-adjusted reference for evaluating scientific productivity. We developed a comprehensive worldwide reference database of researchers using publication and citation data from Scopus. The reference dataset includes 507,233 researchers from across the globe and facilitates the calculation of expected values for H-index, annual citations, and recent publications (within the past 5 years) for each percentile in every discipline. To account for disciplinary differences, we incorporated diverse publication types into the analysis tailored to each domain. The benchmarks utilized were stratified by career stage, assessed at each year after a researcher’s first publication. A composite score was developed to rank publication performance into deciles (D1–D10), where D1 represents the highest level of achievement. Importantly, only data from researchers within the same career stage and same scientific domain are used for comparison, ensuring fair and context-sensitive evaluations. To enhance accessibility, we established a web portal ( www.scientometrics.org/scopus ) to facilitate researcher benchmarking. This age- and discipline-normalized international database promotes the application of responsible metrics, offering a robust framework for global scientometric rankings. By providing an online analysis platform, we enable researchers, institutions, and policymakers to determine expected levels of scholarly output at the individual level while fostering fairness and equity in academic evaluation.

Abstract In this research article, we present the first cross-disciplinary descriptive analysis of the use of contribution statements. Our main objective is to obtain further insight on contributions by a variety of fields (Multidisciplinary, Health, Life, Physical, and Social Sciences) from the largest dataset used up to now. We examine more than 700,000 articles published between 2018 and 2023 in Elsevier and PLOS journals, in combination with bibliometric data extracted from the Scopus database. The descriptive analysis of the dataset focuses on the overall coverage of the merged data, the distribution of authorship and disciplines at paper level, and the interactions between contribution statements, author order, and disciplines. Our two main findings indicate that, on the one hand, looking at contributions and authorship order can enrich the way we understand science as a social endeavor. On the other hand, delving deeper into contributorship differences by field is key. We underscore the value of the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) in unveiling nuanced research dynamics and offering a more equitable framework for evaluation.

Abstract Collaboration and research productivity are widely recognized as interconnected, yet the directionality of this relationship remains debated. This study examines the interplay between collaborative structures and research productivity in two scientific domains: Life Sciences (LS) and Physics and Engineering (PE), using a Bayesian network approach. By analyzing both publication-based and project-based collaborations, we observe distinct domain-specific mechanisms. In LS, the relationship between collaboration and research productivity is more variable: Degree Centrality in publications shows the strongest association with performance, but in some years Closeness Centrality mediates this link by capturing how proximity to knowledge flows temporarily amplifies the effect of direct collaborative ties. By contrast, in PE, Degree Centrality consistently emerges as the strongest and most stable driver of scientific output. The what-if analysis further shows that in PE, higher productivity increases the ability of universities to attract firm partners in EU-funded projects, whereas in LS it primarily reinforces academic collaborations. These findings indicate that collaboration within publication networks tends to play a leading role in shaping research productivity, while research productivity appears to have a stronger influence on collaboration patterns within project-based networks. This mutual reinforcement is shaped by disciplinary and temporal factors, highlighting the importance of tailoring collaboration strategies to specific scientific domains.