GoKawiilNature editorial warns NIH against tying funding to citation metrics
A Nature editorial argues that the US National Institutes of Health should not adopt simplistic bibliometric measures, such as citation counts or journal impact factors, to judge the value of research it funds. It warns that basing funding or hiring decisions on these numbers risks distorting scientific priorities and rewarding easily counted output over genuinely important work.
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Metrics-driven evaluation has repeatedly been shown to push researchers toward safe, quickly citable work rather than risky, transformative science, and could reshape what kind of research gets funded across the world's largest biomedical research agency. Given the NIH's outsized influence on global science funding norms, any shift toward crude metrics could ripple through universities and grant systems everywhere.
- Nature's editorial cautions the NIH against relying on citation-based metrics for funding decisions.
- Such metrics can incentivize quantity and safe research over meaningful scientific impact.
- As a major global funder, NIH policy changes could influence research evaluation practices worldwide.
Source: nature.com — Davison, 2026-09-15
Published there as: “Why the NIH must resist the metrics trap”
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