An indicator proposal to evaluate research activities based on Scimago Institutions Ranking (SIR) data: an application for Italian high education institutions.

In this paper a synthetic indicator to evaluate Italian universities’ scientific research using the Scimago Institutions Ranking (SIR) 2014 data is proposed. After having analysed the shape distribution, fitted parameters of some statistical models, calculated an appropriate standardization, some SIR indicators were aggregated to obtain a Synthetic Indicator (from now, SI) of research evaluation. The synthetic indicator obtained has been used to rank Italian Higher Education Institutions (from now, HEIs). This ranking has been compared firstly with the ranking of National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR), based on the Evaluation of Research Quality (VRQ 2004-2010) results, in terms of standardized mark. Following, with the ranking based on the assignments of the competitive allocation model (research share of FFO) yearly attributed to the Italian HEIs by the Ministry of University and Research (MIUR). The analysis results show a moderate positive correlation between SI and the VQR 2004-2010 indicators (r = 0.543), and SI and FFO per capita (r =0.487). The paper’s original contribution deals with a Synthetic Indicator with a Gaussian distribution summarizing the SIR variables along with the highlighting of a convergence between Italian ANVUR evaluation, based on peer-to-peer and bibliometric analysis. However, using only few publications and the analysis proposed in this paper, based on Scopus bibliometric data, and related to all the publications in the same period.