A new approach to compare the scientific impact of scholars

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ABSTRACT Purpose Generally, the scientific comparison has been done with the help of the overall impact of scholars. Although it is very easy to compare scholars, but how can we assess the scientific impact of scholars who have different research careers? It is very obvious, the scholars may gain a high impact if they have more research experience or have spent more time (in terms of research career in a year). Then we cannot compare two scholars who have different research careers. Many bibliometrics indicators address the time-span of scholars. In this series, the h-index sequence and EM/EM’-index sequence have been introduced for assessment and comparison of the scientific impact of scholars. The h-index sequence, EM-index sequence, and EM’-index sequence consider the yearly impact of scholars, and comparison is done by the index value along with their component value. The time-series indicators fail to give a comparative analysis between senior and junior scholars if there is a huge difference in both scholars’ research careers. Design/methodology/approach We have proposed the cumulative index calculation method to appraise the scientific impact of scholars till that age and tested it with 89 scholars data. Findings The proposed mechanism is implemented and tested on 89 scholars’ publication data, providing a clear difference between the scientific impact of two scholars. This also helps in predicting future prominent scholars based on their research impact. Research limitations This study adopts a simplistic approach by assigning equal credit to all authors, regardless of their individual contributions. Further, the potential impact of career breaks on research productivity is not taken into account. These assumptions may limit the generalizability of our findings Practical implications The proposed method can be used by respected institutions to compare their scholars impact. Funding agencies can also use it for similar purposes. Originality/value This research adds to the existing literature by introducing a novel methodology for comparing the scientific impact of scholars. The outcomes of this research have notable implications for the development of more precise and unbiased research assessment frameworks, enabling a more equitable evaluation of scholarly contributions.