UNIPUB - Methodologies for the characterization of the publication output of higher education institutions using institutional databases

UNIPUB proposes an exploitation of publication databases at higher education institutions concerning their use for characterising the whole publication output of a university. Based on an in-depth analysis of databases in four different countries (Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland), descriptors and indicators are developed and tested, which allow analysing publication output as represented in the databases on different dimensions, including for example national vs international orientation or academic vs. third-mission orientation. These results will thus usefully complement existing analysis based on international bibliographic databases, mostly devoted to papers published in scientific journals in English language. These international databases focus to a large extent on international academic activity and visibility only. Our work could be especially useful for characterizing the publication output in social sciences and humanities, particularly in non-English speaking countries. Descriptors and indicators are produced for the whole higher education institutions, but also for sub-groups clustered on the level of organisational units or disciplinary areas. In addition to the close exploitation of a total of eight university databases, in each country the situation at other higher education institutions is exploited through a country-wide survey.