Research excellence of University of Nova Gorica recognised and emphasized in the Report of European Commission in 2013

European Commission published in 2013 results of the analysis of scientific performance of
European universities in the report entitled »Scientific Output and Collaboration of European Universities«. The aim of the report was to assess the scientific performance of European universities in the period 2007 – 2011. The analysis is based on a selected set of bibliometric indicators that aim to compare scientific performance across universities The report examines and presents the production profiles 303 selected universities within 35 countries of the European Research Area (ERA). The 35 countries comprise members of the EU-27, candidate EU countries, members of the EFTA, and Israel. The universities were selected in order to provide information on those institutions within the ERA that publish the most while ensuring comprehensive coverage of all countries within the ERA. Consequently, a maximum of 20 universities in each country were selected on the basis of their number of published papers. From Slovenia all four universities were included in the analysis.

The report states (Page V):
“Among the 25 universities that published the most, the University of Oxford, ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge are consistently positioned among the top five for the three indicators of scientific impact.* The University of Nova Gorica has the highest scientific impact based on ARC and percentage of highly cited papers and the second-highest ARIF among all 303 selected universities, indicating that the papers it produced have been influential within the scientific community and have been published in high-quality journals.* The Weizmann Institute has the highest ARIF among all ERA universities. The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has both the second highest ARC and percentage of its publications in the top 10% most-cited publications.”

Page 14:
“Even though it does not make the top 25 for the size of its scientific contribution, *the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia and EPFL are worthy of mention*—they rank first and second among the 303 selected ERA universities for their observed scientific impact (ARCs of 2.38 and 2.01). These universities are the only ones with ARC scores above 2. The Weizmann Institute of Science has the first rank in terms of ARIF (1.67). The University of Nova Gorica again stands out for the impact of its publications, being second for its impact based on the journals they published in (ARIF of 1.66). This not only indicates that the papers produced by this university are, on average, influential within the scientific community, but also that the “quality” of their publication venues is high. Finally, the University of Nova Gorica is first again with the highest percentage of publications in the top 10% most-cited publications (24.6%). EPFL is second, just above ETH Zurich, which, with more than 22% of its papers within the most frequently cited, is first among the 25 most-publishing universities. One hundred fifteen universities have 15% or more of their publications in the top 10% most-cited papers in Scopus.”

In the specific field of Physics & Astronomy the report ranks UNG again among the best performing universities
(Page X):
“Among the universities with smaller outputs, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies is the most specialised, the University of Lugano has the highest relative citation impact, the University of Nova Gorica publishes in the highest-impact journals and Roskilde University has the largest share of articles within the top 10% most-cited publications.”

Page 54:
The University of Lugano, which is not specialised at all in this field of research (0.53), achieves the highest score (3.07), ahead of the University of Nova Gorica (2.80) and Radboud University Nijmegen (2.72). The University of Nova Gorica also publishes articles in high-impact journals, as expressed by its ARIF of 1.95, the strongest within this selection. It is followed by the University of Cyprus (1.80), University College Dublin (1.76), the University of Lugano (1.75) and the University of Bergen (1.75). The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich drops to 19th place in this extended selection.
Looking at the share of highly cited publications, Roskilde University is the only one with more than 30% of their papers falling within the top 10% most-cited publications (32.4%). The University of Lugano has the second highest percentage (29.5%), ahead of the University of Nova Gorica (28.9%). The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich is in 10th place.

Methodology: The comparative analysis of the most actively publishing ERA and non-ERA Universities (provided by Science-Metrix) are based on a selected set of bibliometric indicators that aim to compare scientific performance across universities.
These indicators include:

Number of publications: Publications were counted based on both full (FULL) and fractional (FRAC) counting.

Average of Relative Citations (ARC): a field-normalised measure of scientific impact (which also takes into account the publication year and document type of scientific contributions in the normalisation process) based on the citations received by an entity’s papers; thus, it is a direct measure of scientific impact. In this report, the ARC is based on data from the 2000 to 2008 period, due to incomplete citation windows for documents published later.

Average of Relative Impact Factors (ARIF): a field-normalised measure of the scientific impact of publications produced by a given entity (e.g., the world, a country, a NUTS2 region, an institution) based on the impact factors of the journals in which they were published (also taking the publication year of scientific contributions into account in the normalisation process). As such, the ARIF is an indirect impact metric reflecting the average citation rate of the publication venue instead of the actual publications. As a result this indicator may serve as a proxy for the “quality” of the research performed by a given entity. Indeed, the more cited a journal, the more researchers will seek to publish in it and the more the editors will be in a position to select the best papers.

Highly cited publications: The percentage of papers within the top 10% most-cited papers in the reference database. This measure makes use of the normalised citation score of individual publications.