At the end of January I commented on my bibliometric record. I want to return to that topic first before I move on to other matters of interest to the UK scientific community, or at least people who get funding from EPSRC.

Bibliometrics is big business at the moment. Everyone is obsessed with Hirsch indices, impact factors and other metrics. It is always highly gratifying to observe ones own performance and to see how ones colleagues get into the “Highly Cited” category defined by Thompson and ISI. I cannot find any reference to the algorithm that Thompson uses so I cannot optimise my publications and citations. However, on analysing my colleagues it is clear that one of the reasons I am not scoring in the citation game is that I am not doing enough self-citation. In fact I only appear to have cited myself about 700 times. Given my output over my many tears in Science that means I cite my own work about 3-4 times in each paper that I have written. Judging from the performance of many of my colleagues (as deduced from analysing the Web of Science database) I should really be aiming for about 8-10 self-citations per paper. I really must try harder. After all if I don’t think my work is good enough to cite it myself, who else will?

The EPSRC has also decided to get in on the metrics game. However, they have developed a metric to identify troublesome scientists who keep asking for too many research grants. This has been pointed out elsewhere by Katherine Haxton but it is only after a number of conversations with colleagues that i have had a chance to crystallise my thoughts on the EPSRC’s proposed method of demand management. To summarise the algorithm: the EPSRC considers the number of times you have applied for funding over the past 2 years as PI and computes your success rate (% of funded applications). If this is below 25% then you are at risk. If, in addition to this, you have had 3 or more applications in the bottom half of the ranked list of proposals then you are deemed to be a danger to the EPSRC and you are excluded from applying for grants for 12 months.

The main issue in this proposal is its lack of clarity. For example they do not explain whether if you have passed a hurdle (e.g. an outline application stage) the rules apply). For example just under 2 years ago I was unsuccessful in getting funding from a special call whey funded (after sifting an outline call) 2/3 of the proposals but mine is therefore in the bottom half and carries a black mark. Another failed grant was an invited application for Platform Funding (one on list, zero funded). In the last 2 years I applied to the EPSRC 4 times and got funded once. I applied to the BBSRC once (successful) and once to Wellcome (successful). So my overall hit rate is close to 50% but I am probably one possible mark away from being classed as an EPSRC failure.