Evaluation of strategic research programs: The case of Danish environmental research 1993-2002

The article reports on the mid-term and final scientometric evaluations of the Danish Strategic
Environmental Research Program (SMP), which consisted of 13 virtual research centers from 1993 to
1997, nine of which are studied bibliometrically here. Citations are measured from 1993 to 2002.
Central indicators are: center impact factor (CIF), the number of citations received by each center’s
Science Citation Index (SCI) articles; and center journal impact factor (JIF), which is a diachronous IF
per journal volume publishing a center article. Citation and publication data are obtained from the
Thomson-Dialog online version of SCI. Other indicators applied include the weighted Danish and
world domain impact from the national science indicators in subject areas selected by the centers. Topranked
journal volumes used in SMP in terms of JIF scores were correlated with the corresponding
articles’ citation values and vice versa. At the mid-term assessment the Pearson coefficient showed a
strong correlation, which weakened at the final evaluation, except for a few high-impact centers.