The h-index is a simple way to measure the impact of your work and other people's research. It does this by looking at the number of highly impactful publications a researcher has published. The higher the number of cited publications, the higher the h-index, regardless of which journal the work was published in.
Your h-index can be found on the top, right-hand side of your ResearchGate profile, and on your Stats tab, under Citations. It's currently only visible when accessing ResearchGate from your browser, and is not displayed on the iOS app.
How is the h-index calculated on ResearchGate?
The h-index is calculated based on two bits of information: the total number of papers published (Np) and the number of citations (Nc) for each paper. It is defined by how many h of a researcher’s publications (Np) have at least h citations each. This means that if you have one publication with at least one citation, your h-index is 1, if you have two publications with at least two citations each, your h-index would be 2, and so on.
On ResearchGate, you'll see two separate h-indices displayed for each author. The first metric is an h-index that includes self-citations. The second h-index displayed excludes self-citations so that anyone looking at the numbers can compare them and quickly gauge whether other authors are paying attention to a researcher's work.
Please note: The h-index takes into account only citations of your work from scientific literature, reflecting impact in the scientific community. Furthermore, it is calculated based on the publications in your profile. You can help us make sure your h-index accurately represents your impact by adding all of your work to your profile.
How do I improve my h-index?
You can make sure that you have the highest possible h-index for your research by making sure that you add all of your work on ResearchGate. It is especially important to make sure that all of your publications that have been cited are on your profile to help improve your h-index. However, adding other work that hasn't yet been cited or has only been cited infrequently is a great way to create exposure for it, leading to more citations. For more information on citations, see our Citations page.